When you’re storing dairy effluent, of course there’s going to be a bit of a smell. If your pond is located close to your home or the home of a neighbour, you could inadvertently be causing discomfort, health risks, lowering property values, and generally making the neighbourhood an unpleasant place to live. While there isn’t much you can do about the smell of effluent (after all, it is literally made of crap), there are things you can do to help lower the odour.
There have been several cases in New Zealand of farms installing effluent ponds close to neighbours, resulting in lowered property prices and complaints to council. As herd sizes increase with intensification and farm boundaries move closer to inhabited towns, the issue is only going to get worse.
If a council receives a complaint about your effluent system, they’ll send an official to investigate, and may issue you with an infringement notice if they feel the odour is excessive. To avoid a war with neighbours over a bad smell, you could try:
Keeping an eye (or a nose) on the odour
Know your own effluent and the biological processes going on in your pond. If you notice any significant odour changes – especially in the pond area – it could be an indicator of another problem. Odours from ponds are caused by gases getting out of balance. The type of smell (and often the colour) can tell you what gas you’re dealing with. For example, a rotten egg smell suggests an abundance of Hydrogen Sulphide, where a decaying vegetable smell points to Dimethyl Sulphide.
Managing smelly activities
If you need to conduct an activity that you know will produce an unpleasant odour – such as desludging a storage pond – try to plan your work to be the least disruptive as possible. Inform neighbours of your activity, schedule the task on a Mon-Thurs (when they’re likely to be at work), avoid spreading when the wind is blowing toward your neighbours, and if you’re spreading effluent, do it in the morning to allow the sun’s heat to help disperse the odour.
Monitoring seasonal climate changes
Temperature changes can cause ponds to produce more or less of a particular bacteria or gas, which can set off processes resulting in an unpleasant odour.
Preventing an overloaded pond
If a pond is overloaded with wastewater at a higher concentration than usual, this can start processes that result in unpleasant odours.
What to do about a smell effluent pond
If your effluent pond is a bit on the pongy side, there are a few things you can do:
- Stirring the pond helps to aerate it, which will usually cure an issue with hydrogen sulphide. If your pond needs a stirrer, then contact the team at Nevada, as we have several you can choose from.
- Adding lime to the pond while you mix it will also increase the pH and help neutralise the smell. DairyNZ recommends adding 16kg per day of lime for every 1000m2 of pond volume until it has stabilized. You’ll need to stir the lime in to ensure it does its job.
- If not enough Biological activity is happening, the one option is to add Nevada PondBugs which can assist to get the activity going again. Many have proved this as valuable for Ponds with bad odour.
- There are other chemicals that can also help reduce odour, although they’re usually more expensive than lime. Sodium or calcium nitrate have been effective in reducing odour. In order to determine a dosage for these you’ll need to test the pond water and send the sample to a lab.
- You could also spread the entire contents of the pond onto your land and start again. This will smell for a few days, but then the odour will dissipate as the effluent is absorbed into the soil.
Regularly desludging your pond and planting shelter trees between your property and your neighbours are good long-term solutions to combat odour.
No one wants to live next to a smelly effluent pond. Think about your neighbours and your own family, and take practicable steps to ensure your pond remains odour-free.
If you want some help controlling your effluent pond’s odour, then contact the Nevada team. We’re here to offer expert advice and discuss the options for your dairy effluent system.