Research Guides: ENSP 400: Capstone in Environmental Science and Policy: AFO Ammonia Emissions in Maryland

AFO Ammonia Emissions in Maryland

Assignment:

To create a map of animal feeding operations (AFOs) in Maryland and their proximity to residential areas, including overburdened communities, in order to assist the Chesapeake Legal Alliance (CLA) in targeting greater permitting, enforcement, and other mechanisms to protect waters and communities. The project will also include the development of a research report that describes the harms to air quality, water quality, and public health from AFOs and analyzes patterns found in the map in order to make recommendations to CLA.

Outcomes:
1. CLA seeks recommendations on areas to target for permitting and grassroots advocacy in order to protect waters and communities from ammonia pollution from AFOs.
2. Create a GIS map that includes parameters such as race, socio-economic status, income and educational level. It is recommended to use the Maryland Environmental Justice Screening Tool. https://mdewin64.mde.state.md.us/EJ/

Questions to Answer

What are the impacts of ammonia emissions on specific waterways in Maryland?
Which Maryland communities are most impacted by ammonia emissions and other harms from AFOs in the Chesapeake?
What are the other environmental and public health impacts of AFOs?
What other trends or findings are evident from mapping the relationship between AFO locations and other environmental and socioeconomic data?
How often have MDE or AFO operators taken action to mitigate these impacts?
How have other states mapped and researched AFO emissions and what can be learned from these states?

Eastern Shore Ammonia Air Monitoring Project
Project report from Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) and the Assateague Coastal Trust that monitored ammonia emissions in areas close to large poultry operations in Somerset and Worcester counties in Maryland.
March 2023
Maryland’s Supreme Court Issues Decision in Assateague Coastal Trust v. MDE
Press Release from the Chesapeake Legal Alliance concerning the Maryland Supreme Court reversing the decision of a lower court that found that the state’s Department of the Environment (MDE) must reduce ammonia pollution emitted from industrial animal agriculture.
Maryland Department of the Environment v. Assateague Coastal Trust, No. 11, September Term 2022, Opinion by Booth, J.
The opinion of the Supreme Court of Maryland reversing a lower court decision that had required MDE to reduce ammonia emissions from AFOs and found MDE’s less stringent approach to emissions to be sufficient to comply with the Clean Water Act and Maryland law.
MERLIN Online
Maryland's Environmental Resources and Land Information Network and part of the MD iMap Mapping System. View spatial data and to use that information to make better informed decisions. It allows users to produce a custom map of any location in Maryland, including their choice of base maps and data layers.
MD Department of the Environment - Animal Feeding Operations (AFOs)
Provides information on AFOs including regulations and fees and permitting.
Maryland Open Data Portal
State agency data.
Environmental Justice and Permitting Guide
Maryland Department of the Environment.
Ammonia Emissions from Broiler Operations Higher than Previously Thought
Environmental Integrity Project.
Modeling and measurements of ammonia from poultry operations: Their emissions, transport, and deposition in the Chesapeake Bay
Journal article:
Baker J, Battye WH, Robarge W, Pal Arya S, Aneja VP. Modeling and measurements of ammonia from poultry operations: Their emissions, transport, and deposition in the Chesapeake Bay. Sci Total Environ. 2020 Mar 1;706:135290
Comments on Draft General Discharge Permit for Animal Feeding Operations
Chesapeake Legal Alliance

It is so important to follow up on references you find in relevant documents. And for journal articles, in addition to using the references, be sure to look forward and go to google scholar to see who has cited the article. See the tab: Citation Chasing.

Use your project scope document to create a list of searchable keywords. Add keywords listed in relevant articles to this list.
Keep track of your searches and what databases you are using so you do not duplicate your work

For example, The Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) and the Assateague Coastal Trust Report (linked under Assignment Resources) has the following references:
Report - follow the link
Delmarva Land and Litter Collaborative, “Ammonia Emissions from Poultry Production”, 2022, Link: https://delmarvalandandlitter.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Updated-ammonia-paper-high-res-1.pdf

Additional examples:
The journal article, Modeling and measurements of ammonia from poultry operations: Their emissions, transport, and deposition in the Chesapeake Bay (linked under Assignment Resources) has been cited by 17 other researchers. Go to Google Scholar to see the citations.

The journal article, Sadia Naseem and Annie J. King, “Ammonia production in poultry houses can affect health of humans, birds, and the environment—techniques for its reduction during poultry production” Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 2018.
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11356-018-2018-y.pdf
has been cited by 190 other researchers 116 cited from the Web of Science. Your research will be greatly expanded if you take a look at the citing documents. Build your bibliography.

Some sample searches and databases: (databases linked below)
Try searches using the water keywords with or without the "animal feeding operation*" keywords and without Maryland

Google Scholar =
"ammonia emissions" waterways maryland

Other databases:
Try a combination of words:
Web of Science
ScienceDirect

"ammonia emissions"
and
waterway* or water or bay or chesapeake
and
maryland (change search field from All Fields to Abstract to be sure the article isa about the state of maryland)

---
"Animal Feeding Operation*" or AFO*
and
ammonia
and
emissions

EbscoHost Databases:
Academic Search Ultimate
Agricola
Garden, Landscape and Horticulture Index
GreenFILE

Remember to get into one database and then add the others to search the databases together. See the tab - Searching Multiple Databases

You might not retrieve any relevant documents by adding - Maryland - but yo might find other documents from other states/areas you can use:
"ammonia emissions"
and
waterway* or water or bay or chesapeake
and
"Animal Feeding Operation*" or AFO*

Google - use the site: and org / gov
"animal feeding operation*" maryland ammonia emission* site:org
"animal feeding operation*" maryland ammonia emission* water* site:org
"animal feeding operation*" maryland ammonia emission* water* site:gov

Google Scholar
Google Scholar searches academic publishers, professional societies, pre-print archives, and university institutional repositories.
Web of Science Core Collection
The Web of Science Core Collection provides comprehensive coverage of the sciences, social sciences, and arts, and humanities across journals, books and conference proceedings. It indexes more than 5,700 major journals across 164 scientific disciplines. The best database for finding what papers have cited other papers. Cited references can be traced forward in time. Web of Science Training Materials available here: http://wokinfo.com/training_support/training/web-of-science
ScienceDirect
Peer-reviewed, full text database containing electronic book and journal titles covering the fields of science, technology and medicine. In addition to keyword searches, the image search and value added content associated with the publication can be found in the form of audio, video and datasets. Extensive coverage of the physical and biological sciences, significant numbers of journals in the social sciences, and some journals in the humanities. Dates of abstracting and indexing vary. Full text prior to 1995 often going back to vol. 1, iss. 1
Author searches are done on the last name only.
Subject searches are supported, but subjects are not presented within the records.
Truncation is not supported in phrases.
Academic Search Ultimate
Multi-disciplinary database providing information for nearly every area of academic study. Includes an enormous collection of the most valuable peer-reviewed full text journals, as well as additional journals, magazines, newspapers and books. Multidisciplinary subjects including: social sciences, humanities, education, computer sciences, engineering, physics, chemistry, language & linguistics, arts & literature, medicine, ethnic studies. 1965- present.