Potential water quality impacts originating from land burial of cattle carcasses

Among the conventional disposal methods for livestock mortalities, on‐farm burial is a preferred method, but the potential water quality impacts of animal carcass burial is not well understood. Typically, on‐farm burial pits are constructed without liners to prevent percolation of leachate into soil and groundwater. To date, no information is available on temporal trends for contaminants in leachate produced from livestock mortality pits. In our study, we examined the concentrations of conventional contaminants (electrical conductivity, COD, TOC, TKN, TP, and solids) as well as some antimicrobials and steroid hormones for a period of 20 months. High concentrations of conventional contaminants were detected in leachate collected from the field burial pits. In addition, 17β‐estradiol and monensin were also observed at maximum concentrations of 20,069 ng/L and 11,980 ng/L, respectively. Estimated mass loading of total steroid hormones and veterinary pharmaceuticals were determined to be 1.84 and 1.01 μg/kg of buried cattle carcass materials