18-Env-B6 Agricultural Waste Management · May 2018
Nivaar worked solution (AI-drafted; not reviewed by a licensed engineer)
National Exams, May 2018 — 04-Env-B6, Agricultural Waste Management (3 hours, open book, all 16 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); Ontario Environmental Protection Act and Ontario Water Resources Act; Canada–Ontario Lake Erie Action Plan / Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement Annex 4.
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.
1. Nutrient Management Act, 2002 (and its regulations, principally O. Reg. 267/03) — the primary, purpose-built statute for agricultural nutrient management in Ontario: it establishes the requirement for Nutrient Management Strategies and Plans, sets storage capacity and setback/minimum-distance-separation rules, classifies Non-Agricultural Source Materials (NASM) and their approval requirements, and underlies the Table 3/Table 4 nutrient-availability tables used in Question 12.
2. Environmental Protection Act (EPA), R.S.O. 1990 — Ontario's general environmental statute; it prohibits the discharge of a contaminant (including manure) that causes or is likely to cause an adverse effect, and its spills-reporting provisions apply to a manure release such as the tile-outlet discharge discussed in Question 4, independent of the Nutrient Management Act's own farm-specific rules.
3. Ontario Water Resources Act (OWRA), R.S.O. 1990 — governs the protection of Ontario's surface and ground water specifically; it is the statute most directly invoked when a manure discharge reaches (or threatens to reach) a watercourse or aquifer, and works alongside the EPA's spills provisions.
Other acceptable answers include the Clean Water Act, 2006 (source water protection, relevant where a farm sits in a wellhead protection area) and the Farming and Food Production Protection Act, 1998 (normal farm practices protection, relevant to odour/nuisance complaints); any three of the five above satisfy the question.
