FSA Consulting prepares various reports and other documents either as part of various projects or for the general information of clients.

• Pigs
• Cattle Feedlots
• Dairy
• Poultry
• Environmental
• Natural Resources
• Irrigation

All of the publication are in PDF format and can be viewed and then printed using Adobe's Acrobat Reader. If you don't already have it you can download the Acrobat Reader.

• Part A - Piggery Odour Database (2,990 kb)
  Watts, P.J. 1999a. Development of a pig effluent emissions database and analysis of promising control strategies - Final Report - Part A - Database on odour research and emission rates. Final Report, Pig Research and Development Corporation, Canberra, ACT, Australia, Project No. FSE 1/1503, Nov 1999 (First Revision - December 2000).
  
  
• Part B Preferred Odour Reduction Strategies (1,164 kb)
  Watts, P.J. 1999b. Development of a pig effluent emissions database and analysis of promising control strategies - Final Report - Part B - Summary of Preferred Emission Reduction Strategies. Final Report, Pig Research and Development Corporation, Canberra, ACT, Australia, Project No. FSE 1/1503, Dec 1999
  
  
• Alternative Systems for Piggery Effluent Treatment a report prepared for the Environment Protection Agency and the Rural City of Murray Bridge (3,750 kb)
  FSA Environmental was commissioned by the Environment Protection Agency (SA) and the Rural City of Murray Bridge to prepare a report on alternative effluent systems that are available that would reduce the odour impact from piggeries. Specifically the report needed to give an estimation of the economic impact of the systems, including the extra costs involved and an indication of what size the systems may prove to be economically viable. (November 2000)
  

• Pink Ponds Final Report (901 kb)
  FSA Environmental was engaged by a private client to undertake studies of odour emission rates from piggery effluent treatment ponds. The hypothesis was that odour emissions would be lower from ponds that higher populations of purple-sulphur bacteria (pink ponds). (November 2001)
  
• Emission Data Paper (189 Kb)
  FSA Consulting staff prepared a paper for a national odour workshop held in Sydney by APL on the most recent odour emission data for the pig industry.
  
• Nuisance Criteria Paper (79 Kb)
  FSA Consulting staff prepared a paper for a national odour workshop held in Sydney by APL on theodour impact criteria for the pig industry.

The following are a series of Case Studies from the APL Environmental Training Package for Piggery Managers prepared by Robyn Tucker, National Coordinator

• Dealing with Odour Complaints (119 kb)
• Feed Wastage (184 kb)
• How Much Nitrogen are You Applying (108 kb)
• Sizing Anaerobic Effluent Treatment Ponds (119 kb)

APL Solid Separation Study

The Effect of Loading Rate on Odour Emissions From Anaerobic Effluent Ponds in South-East Queensland (684 kb)
Paper presented at 4th Queensland Environmental Conference, 30-31 May 2002, Brisbane. Geordie Galvin, Scott Lowe, Michael Atzeni and Ken Casey, Eugene McGahan.

• Strategies to Reduce Odour Emissions from Meat Chicken Farms (187 kb)
  Eugene McGahan, Chaim Kolominskas, Kelsey Bawden and Robin Ormerod, Proceedings 2002 Poultry Information Exchange

RIRDC National EMS for the Meat Chicken Industry

• FSA Consulting was commissioned by the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC) to develop a National Environmental Management System for the Meat Chicken Industry. As part of this project, FSA Consulting developed Meat Chicken Technical Environmental Notes
  1. Litter Clean-out (200 kb)
  2. Manure Production Litter Composition (225 kb)
  3. Composting Chicken Litter (143 kb)
  4. Land Application of Poultry Litter (247 kb)
  5. Composting Chicken Carcasses (162 kb)

AECL Fact Sheets

As part of EMS pathways project for the egg industry, FSA Consulting have developed a series of 7 fact sheets designed to assist egg businesses in improving the operation of their farms.  The fact sheets cover issues related to by-product management including manure and mortality composting, composition and application rates for layer manure.  These fact sheets supply information that will allow farmers to increase their triple bottom line.  The fact sheets developed include:

1. Carcass composting for mortality management. (104 kb)
2. Composting layer manure. (84 kb)
3. Poultry layer manure ? How much is it worth? (74 kb)
4. Poultry layer manure ? Nutrient budgeting to maximise value. (72 kb)
5. Composition of poultry layer manure. (34 kb)
6. Spreading poultry layer manure. (63 kb)
7. Storing poultry layer manure on farm. (106 kb)

This project was carried out by FSA Consulting for the Australian Egg Corporation Ltd and funded by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

The Department of Tourism, Fair Trading and Wine Industry Development
is working in partnership with the Queensland wine industry, other Queensland and Federal Government Departments and stakeholders to support the growth of the Queensland wine industry. A part of the Wine Industry Development Strategy is to develop, in co-operation with industry, guidelines on best practice in relation to water use in production and waste disposal under the Environmental Protection Act 1994. FSA Consulting was engaged to facilitate the development of these guidelines.

• EPA Wine Industry Best Practice Water Use (368 kb)

Sustainable management of recycled organics is an important Natural Resource issue in the Condamine Catchment.  As part of research funded by the Condamine Alliance, FSA Consulting have developed this series of fact sheets on the composition, application and management of recycled organics (feedlot manure, layer manure etc) for end users. 

• Land Application - Benefits to soil health
• Land Application - how much is manure worth
• Land Application - how much should I apply
• Land Application - Legal issues with spreading animal by-products
• Land Application - Spreaders
• Land Application - Spreading recycled organics
• Management - Health risks with recycled organic usage
• Management - Metals in recycled organics
• Management - Salt in recycled organics
• Management - Weed seeds in recycled organics

This second series of fact sheets have been developed for the effluent producing industries (Abattoirs, piggeries, feedlots) and supply information on sustainable land application and alternative methods for effluent reuse.

• Effluent Management - Co-composting for effluent usage
• Effluent Management - Composting machinery
• Effluent Management - Evaporation systems
• Effluent Management- Handling salt in effluent
• Effluent Management- Sustainable land disposal

Farm Dams for the Sugar Industry
(Watts, PJ, Cox, GJ and Stepnuk, LM. March 2001)

There is no set recipe for building a farm dam, as site-specifics vary the procedure in each case. Such a project is typically undertaken by a team consisting of the farmer(s), an experienced consultant and a contractor. However, some duties performed by the consulting engineer can be carried out by an extension officer and/or the farmer, since the basic steps remain the same for dam feasibility analysis, design and maintenance. These Guidelines serve to illustrate the methods and tasks involved in these steps.

• Chapter 1 rationale for building a farm dam. (24 kb)
• Chapter 2 investigations prior to on-site inspection (445 kb)
• Chapter 3 site inspection (526 kb)
• Chapter 4 discusses considerations in detailed design. (1151 kb)
• Chapter 5 examines construction practices specific to earth dams. (510 kb)
• Chapter 6 delineates maintenance requirements. (819 kb)

The appendices provide background information for dam options:

• Appendix A - dam options (1486 kb)
• Appendix B - legal and safety issues (495 kb)
• Appendix C - climatic data (220 kb)
• Appendix D - catchment yield (34 kb)
• Appendix E - soil classification, testing and suitability (380 kb)
• Appendix F - dams as ecosystems (1054 kb)

Farm Dams for the Sugar Industry has been compiled by FSA Irrigation, and was funded by the Rural Water Use Efficiency Scheme, the Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations and Bundaberg Sugar Ltd.

Assessment of evaporation mitigation systems
Craig et al, (2005) and Watts (2005) identified a number of areas for further research and investment in this area of evaporation. One of these was the development of a computer model (?Ready Reckoner?) that would allow site-specific assessment of evaporation mitigation systems. Evaporation mitigation systems (EMS?s) include installing a cover over the water, applying a chemical monolayer or modifying the shape of the storage dam. For example, increasing the storage depth reduces the relative surface area of the volume of water stored, hence reducing evaporative losses.

The ?Ready Reckoner? is a model developed by FSA Consulting and NCEA that performs a simple, site-specific economic assessment of the viability of evaporation mitigation systems. The user enters appropriate data to customise the ?Ready Reckoner? to their site. The ?Ready Reckoner? returns the volume of water saved (in ML) and the cost of the evaporation mitigation system used to save this water ($/ML/year). The ?Ready Reckoner? can be found at: http://www.npsi.gov.au/readyreckoner/index.html

• Download Manual [PDF]
• Download Spreadsheet [XLS]

Effective evaporation reduction systems
Over the past few years there has been a number of investigations into effective evaporation reduction systems. According to a Scoping Study commissioned by NPSI in 2005, such systems need to:

• reduce the amount of energy available to cause evaporation,
• restrict the boundary layer at the water surface, or
• modify the wind and humidity above the water surface.

Current evaporation programs include chemical monolayers, floating vegetation, assorted floating modular devices, air-tight surface covers, and shade-cloth. FSA Consulting did a Scoping Study on Reduction of Evaporation from Farm Dams. Further information on the findings from this scoping study can be accessed from the Knowledge Base on the NPSI website ?Scoping Study: Reduction of Evaporation from Farm Dams? Dr. Peter J. Watts; www.npsi.gov.au or downloaded here.

• NPSI Farm Dam Evaporation [PDF]