Guidelines for the Beneficial Use of Fertilizing Residuals

Although in principle research activities are exempt from a CA, the promoter must
inform the regional office of the project and provide the above-mentioned documents.
The promoter must also ensure compliance with section 20 of the EQA (see Section 1).
Upon completion of the project, a report describing the water-air-soil impacts must also
be submitted to the regional office.
Projects that do not meet these requirements are considered to be beneficial use projects
and therefore require a CA.
4.2.2 Agricultural activities – Spreading
The regulation (Table 4.1) indicates that some agricultural activities are exempt from a
CA. These exemptions are mainly concerned with the spreading of FRs in the form of:
• mineral fertilizers;
• manure;
• farm compost;
• BNQ-compliant liming amendments.
It should be noted that mineral fertilizers, for example, may contain up to 15% organic
matter (see Glossary). This means that a granulated mineral fertilizer can contain a
certain amount of organic granules, such as treated manure or granulated municipal
biosolids. These mixtures must, however, be manufactured at the plant.
Manure that is blended with FRs may no longer qualify as “manure” and, consequently,
may lose its CA exemption for agricultural application. See the definition of the term
“manures” in the glossary, in order to determine mixes that do not require a CA.
However, where the FR is used as livestock bedding, the resulting bedding and livestock
waste mixture is considered to be manure, since the AOR includes “bedding” in its
definition of the term “livestock waste.”
With respect to farm compost, other than absorbents used as bedding, some FRs added
during composting such as sawdust are considered, by analogy, to be “farm products”
(see Glossary).
A few FRs are considered to be “calcareous amendments” according to the definition
retained (see Glossary). These are part of the broader group of liming materials (Section
2.2) and “compliant with” to the BNQ liming standard. For the difference between
“compliant” and “certified,” see Section 3.6.
4.2.3 Agricultural activities – Temporary storage
For regulatory purposes, temporary storage at the application site is considered an
integral part of the spreading activity. If the spreading activity is exempt from a CA
pursuant to the regulation, storage of the FR is likewise exempted.
Section 4 ~ Page 19