The pollution of rivers and lakes is of concern because of the threat to public water supplied and because of the damage caused to natural ecosystems. Waterborne diseases remain rife in the Third World, while in developed countries there has been a decline in the quality of water. It has also become apparent that pollutants may destroy ecosystems hundreds of miles from their source. Some of these toxic materials such as lead and PCBs also pose threats to public health. This text describes the sources of various types of pollutants, their effects on aquatic organisms, ecosystems and man, using case histories where appropriate. Ways of mitigating the effects of pollutants by control and ecosystem manipulation are described. Techniques for assessing the effects of pollution, both in field and laboratory, are introduced. The role of the biologist in pollution assessment and control and in the wider sphere of mangement of acquatic resources is also examined.

Biology of Freshwater Pollution.

The poultry industry is one of the largest and fastest growing agro-based industries in the world. This can be attributed to an increasing demand for poultry meat and egg products. However, a major problem facing the poultry industry is the large-scale accumulation of wastes including manure and litter which may pose disposal and pollution problems unless environmentally and economically sustainable management technologies are evolved. Most of the litter produced by the poultry industry is currently applied to agricultural land as a source of nutrients and soil amendment. However environmental pollution, resulting from nutrient and contaminant leaching can occur when poultry litter is applied under soil and climatic conditions that do not favour agronomic utilisation of the manure-borne nutrients. This review examines the composition of poultry litter in relation to nutrient content and environmental contaminants, its value as a nutrient source, soil amendment, animal feed and fuel source, and cost-effective innovative technologies for improving its value. Poultry litter provides a major source of nitrogen, phosphorus and trace elements for crop production and is effective in improving physical and biological fertility, indicating that land application remains as the main option for the utilisation of this valuable resource. The alternative use of poultry litter; as an animal feed and fuel source, is limited by contaminants, and high moisture content, respectively. The review proposes best management practices to mitigate environmental consequences associated with air and water quality parameters that are impacted by land application in order to maintain the continued productivity, profitability, and sustainability of the poultry industry.

https://www.poultryu.umn.edu/sites/poultryu.umn.edu/files/uses_and_mgmt_of_poultry_litter.pdf

Uses and management of poultry litter.

Reactive-nitrogen (Nr) has a wide variety of beneficial and detrimental effects on human health. The most important of the beneficial effects are increasing global and regional food supplies and increased nutritional quality of available foods. However, lack of adequate dietary intake of amino acids and proteins is a serious cause of malnutrition when food supplies are inadequate because of poverty, drought, floods, wars, and displacements of people as refugees. There is sufficient, though limited, quantitative data indicating that increased circulation of Nr in the environment is responsible for significant human health effects via other exposure pathways. Nr can lead to harmful health effects from airborne occupational exposures and population-wide indoor and outdoor air pollution exposures to nitrogen dioxide and ozone. Nr can also affect health via water pollution problems, including methemoglobinemia from contaminated ground water, eutrophication causing fish kills and algal blooms that can be toxic to humans, and via global warming. The environmental pollutants stemming from reactive nitrogen are ubiquitous, making it difficult to identify the extent to which Nr exerts a specific health effect. As all populations are susceptible, continued interdisciplinary investigations are needed to determine the extent and nature of the beneficial and harmful effects on human health of nitrogen-related pollutants and their derivatives.

https://bioone.org/journals/ambio-a-journal-of-the-human-environment/volume-31/issue-2/0044-7447-31.2.120/Reactive-Nitrogen-and-Human-HealthAcute-and-Long-term-Implications/10.1579/0044-7447-31.2.120.pdf

Reactive Nitrogen and Human Health:Acute and Long-term Implications

Reversing the spread of antibiotic multiresistant bacteria is hampered by ignorance of the natural history of resistance genes, the mobile elements carrying them, and the bacterial hosts harboring them. Using traditional cultivation and cultivation-independent molecular techniques, we quantified antibiotic resistance genes and mobile elements called integrons in poultry house litter from commercial poultry farms. Unexpectedly, the major reservoir for Class 1 integrons in poultry litter is not their previously identified hosts, Gram-negative Enterobacteriaceae such as Escherichia coli. Rather, integrons and associated resistance genes abound in several genera of Gram-positive bacteria that constitute >85% of the litter community compared with Enterobacteriaceae that comprise <2% of this ecosystem. This finding warrants reexamination of our assumptions about the persistence and spread of antibiotic resistance genes.

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/101/18/7118.full.pdf

Gram-positive bacteria are a major reservoir of Class 1 antibiotic resistance integrons in poultry litter

Trace elements are added to poultry feed for disease prevention and enhanced feed efficiency. High concentrations are found in poultry litter (PL), which raises concerns regarding trace element loading of soils. Trace metal cation solubility from PL may be enhanced by complexation with dissolved organic carbon (DOC). Mineralization of organo-As compounds may result in more toxic species such as As(III) and As(V). Speciation of these elements in PL leachates should assist in predicting their fate in soil. Elemental concentrations of 40 PL samples from the southeastern USA were determined. Water-soluble extractions (WSE) were fractionated into hydrophobic, anionic, and cationic species with solid-phase extraction columns. Arsenic speciation of seven As species, including the main As poultry feed additives, roxarsone (ROX; 3-nitro-4-hydroxyphenylarsonic acid) and p-arsanilic acid (p-ASA; 4-aminophenylarsonic acid), was performed by ion chromatography-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (IC-ICP-MS). Total As concentrations in the litter varied from 1 to 39 mg kg(-1), averaging 16 mg kg(-1). Mean total Cu, Ni, and Zn concentrations were 479, 11, and 373 mg kg(-1), respectively. Copper and Ni were relatively soluble (49 and 41% respectively) while only 6% of Zn was soluble. Arsenic was highly soluble with an average of 71% WSE. Roxarsone was the major As species in 50% of PL samples. However, the presence of As(V) as the major species in 50% of the PL samples indicates that mineralization of ROX had occurred. The high solubility of As from litter and its apparent ready mineralization to inorganic forms coupled with the large quantity of litter that is annually land-applied in the USA suggests a potential detrimental effect on soil and water quality in the long term.

/pdf/trace-element-speciation-in-poultry-litter-52n8ijf1nq.pdf

Trace element speciation in poultry litter

Poultry products are consumed by most ethnic populations worldwide. In recent years, the global production of poultry meat and eggs has increased at an annual rate of approximately 5% with the United States, China, the former Soviet Union countries, Brazil, France, and Japan representing dominant production countries. In 1991, nearly 40 million metric tons (t) of poultry meat and 600 billion eggs were produced globally (Sims and Wolf 1994). In the United States, poultry production increased by 44% between 1982 and 1994, representing a recent annual production inventory of nearly 8 billion broilers, 300 million layers, and 300 million turkeys (Bagley et al. 1996; U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry 1997).

J C Barker

Papers

Management and Utilization of Poultry Wastes