Hormones and Pharmaceuticals Generated by Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations: Transport in Water and Soil

Hormones and Pharmaceuticals Generated by Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations: Transport in Water and Soil examines how hormones, antibiotics and pharmaceuticals generated from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) of cattle, poultry, swine and aquaculture are transported in water and soil. Little is known of the environmental fate of the tons of physiologically active steroid hormones released each year. In their own regard, in the last 20 years considerable attention has been given to a wide variety of natural and anthropomorphic agents known as endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs). Until the contribution of steroid hormones to the environment are better defined, it will be difficult to quantify the exact impact of EDCs. While some advances in the understanding of the fate of these compounds in water has been made, little is known about the processes that govern their transport in soil or how they eventually reach groundwater. As this book discusses extensively, it is somewhat of a mystery how steroids, with their lipophilic nature, strong binding to humic acids and extensive metabolism by soil bacteria, can be transported through even a few centimeters of soil, let alone 20 to 40 meters to the groundwater. With respect to antibiotics, the emphasis is on their fate and transport in the environment and on the emergence of antibiotic resistant bacteria. Impacts on soil ecology, including the impact of antibiotics on the metabolism of other active agents, is also discussed. Similarly, the acaricides and insecticides used in animal husbandry are widely used and their environmental pathways have been studied and have significant impacts on soil and dung ecology. Active compounds with potential environmental impacts, such as growth promoters generated from CAFOs, are described. However, because little is known of their environmental fate, emphasis is placed on defining the gaps in our knowledge and defining their possible effects.

Dr. Laurence S. Shore received his doctorate in physiology from Hahnemann Medical School in Philadelphia in 1972. After working as a cowboy and chicken farmer, he joined the staff at the Kimron Veterinary Institute in Israel in 1979. He has 70 reviewed publications dealing with reproductive endocrinology and toxicology of many phyla including snails, carp, chickens, cows, oryxes and lions. His current research is the transport of hormones and drugs from CAFOs in soil, watersheds and groundwater. This work was done in Israel, Germany and the USA, where he was a Senior Smithsonian Fellow at the Smithsonian Environmental Center in 1993.

Dr. Amy Pruden received her Ph.D. in environmental science from the University of Cincinnati in 2002. She was an assistant professor of environmental engineering at Colorado State University specializing in applied environmental microbiology and biological processes, focusing much of her effort on understanding antibiotic resistance genes as environmental pollutants. Dr. Pruden has published more than 25 peer-reviewed articles in the last eight years, one of which focused on antibiotic resistance and received an Editor’s Choice Award from the journal Environmental Science and Technology. In 2006, she received an NSF CAREER Award and the Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering (PECASE). Dr. Pruden is currently an associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.