High-tech device sniffs out trouble

BOISE – An agricultural engineer with the University of Idaho says there’s a new weapon in the battle against dairy odors.

The Nasal Ranger is on the case.

The Ranger, which measures the intensity of smells, is effective enough to enforce agricultural odor rules, according to an 18-month study commissioned by the Idaho Department of Agriculture.

The Nasal Ranger olfactometer – a 1 1/2 -foot snout-like device containing a series of filters – could help the agency in its odor management mission, said University of Idaho agricultural engineer Ron Sheffield, who completed the study.

The 2002 Agricultural Odor Management Act calls upon the state department to help manage all offensive agricultural odors that are stronger than those that typically accompany “accepted agricultural practices.” The law was passed largely in response to neighbors’ complaints about dairy odor lowering their property values and harming their quality of life.

The law requires that odors be judged based on frequency, intensity, duration and offensiveness.

The Nasal Ranger effectively measures intensity, Sheffield said. Frequency and duration of odors can be determined without the aid of equipment.

But the high-tech sniffing aid does not differentiate between pleasant and offensive odors, he cautioned, and what is stinky to some smellers may not be stinky to others.

“It is tough to be definite in this whole situation because it is so subjective,” said John Chatburn, the department’s deputy director of animal industries.

Chatburn said he believes Idaho is the only state that has issued odor violations and enforced best management practices on concentrated animal feeding operations, even without the Nasal Ranger. The determinations for enforcement procedures were based upon staffers’ “best professional judgment,” Chatburn said.

There are several other states that are working on odor regulations. Two of them – Missouri and Iowa – are also discussing use of the Nasal Ranger to quantify how bad odors are, Sheffield said.

An agency-appointed odor committee decided Thursday to recommend to the agriculture department that it go forward with writing enforceable odor management rules. The rules still must be approved by the state Legislature.