18-Env-B6 Agricultural Waste Management · December 2016
Nivaar worked solution (AI-drafted; not reviewed by a licensed engineer)
National Exams, December 2016 — 04-Env-B6, Agricultural Waste Management (3 hours, open book, all questions to be attempted, 100 marks total).
Reference texts: Rynk et al., On-Farm Composting Handbook (NRAES-54); OMAFRA, Nutrient Management Act, 2002 and O. Reg. 267/03 / Nutrient Management Protocol (NMAN); Metcalf & Eddy, Wastewater Engineering (anaerobic digestion chapter); ASABE Standards (manure storage, land application equipment).
Question text not reproduced: the examination questions are © Engineers and Geoscientists BC. Open the official past paper (linked at the top of this page) to read the question, then follow the worked solution below.
b. P₂O₅ — phosphorus pentoxide (phosphate). The oxide-equivalent form conventionally used to report a fertilizer/manure's available phosphorus content (as used throughout Question 12); %P is converted to %P₂O₅ by the factor 0.92 given in Section C.
d. ASM — Agricultural Source Material. Under Ontario's Nutrient Management Act, 2002 and O. Reg. 267/03, materials generated by the farm's own agricultural operation (livestock manure, bedding, etc.) are classified as Agricultural Source Materials, distinct from off-farm Non-Agricultural Source Materials (NASM, see Questions 3 and 14).
e. EPA — (Ontario) Environmental Protection Act. Given the question's own framing ("in Ontario"), and consistent with Question 15's answer, this is the provincial Environmental Protection Act (R.S.O. 1990, c. E.19), not the identically-abbreviated United States Environmental Protection Agency.
c. CM1 — Category 1 (Non-Agricultural Source) Material. O. Reg. 267/03 classifies NASM into risk-based categories (Category 1 being the lowest-risk class, subject to the lightest approval requirements); "CM1" is read here as shorthand for that Category 1 classification, consistent with the regulation's own category framework.
a. GNF. This abbreviation could not be confirmed against the standard Nutrient Management Act/O. Reg. 267/03 vocabulary, OMAFRA's published Nutrient Management Protocol, or the NMAN software documentation — it is not a widely-recognized term in the Ontario nutrient-management literature. It is flagged in the callout below rather than guessed at; a student sitting this exam should raise the same flag rather than invent a confident-sounding but unverifiable definition.
