Day 089 - 15 Feb 95 - Page 42
1
2 MR. RAMPTON: Your Lordship is quite entitled to take judicial
3 notice of the smell of ammonia.
4
5 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Which question you were asking for, surely
6 there was no objection to "it has a very strong smell,
7 presumably, he would be able to tell if there is too much
8 ammonia" because, surely, I have known that since the age
9 of about seven. If there is some particular point -- what
10 was the worry about it?
11
12 MR. MORRIS: For all we know, the claim by the witness that
13 ammonia is taken seriously may be completely without
14 foundation. So, therefore, the stockmen not noticing the
15 ammonia, or the witness not mentioning it, may indicate the
16 fact that what he said before was exaggerated.
17
18 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think we have to use some ordinary
19 judgment. I would have thought most stockmen would not
20 particularly like the smell of ammonia, and the moment they
21 got a whiff of it or more than a whiff of it, they would
22 want to do something about it, even if they had total
23 disregard for the welfare of their stock.
24 (To the witness): But am I wrong about that?
25 A. No, you are not wrong; you are absolutely right.
26
27 MR. RAMPTON (To the witness): What my question was going to be,
28 unless, of course, they wear clothes pegs on their nose,
29 Dr. Pattison, supposing a stockman does notice an
30 overpowering smell of ammonia, what does he do about it,
31 which is not a leading question?
32 A. The normal procedure is to improve the ventilation, to
33 put on extra fans, if it is very cold weather they will
34 probably put on heating as well as extra fans.
35
36 Q. If he should come back the next day or an hour or two later
37 and the smell is still there or it reappears, what does he
38 do then?
39 A. Well, the fans can be -- there are several fans all the
40 way down the sheds. They can be adjusted -- well, first of
41 all, the thermostat can be adjusted to bring on more or
42 less fans. The fans can be brought on in groups or
43 singularly, whatever is required. So, if the smell
44 persists or keeps coming back, it obviously means that the
45 ventilation in that particular area is not satisfactory,
46 so they adjust the ventilation accordingly.
47
48 Q. Have I understood it correctly, is there any way of
49 treating the cause of ammonia emissions or emanations?
50 A. I mean, the basic cause is bacterial fermentation in
51 the environment/index.html">litter and, as it is a waste product of that, it has to
52 be removed. There is no effective means yet of treating
53 the environment/index.html">litter to remove ammonia, although it is something that
54 is being investigated.
55
56 Q. So you have to treat the effect and not the cause ---
57 A. That is correct.
58
59 Q. -- you have to get rid of the ammonia with the ventilation
60 system?
