Nicholas School Team Receives EPA Grant to Examine Potential Environmental Impacts of Estrogen in Hog Waste

May 24, 2007

DURHAM, N.C. – A research team led by Seth W. Kullman, assistant research professor at the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Science at Duke University, has received a two-year, $663,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to examine the potential environmental impacts of estrogen in hog waste generated at concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO).

The funded project, “An Integrated Approach to Developing a Total Facility Estrogen Budget at a Swine Farrowing CAFO,” aims to fill large data gaps relating to the concentration, release, fate and transport of estrogens contained in the animals’ waste. Naturally occurring estrogenic compounds present a risk to terrestrial and aquatic environments through their potential release and action as endocrine disruptors.

“Given the trend in agriculture toward concentrated animal feeding operations and the extensive volume of waste generated, the potential for environmental impact cannot be overstated,” Kullman and his colleagues write in their abstract.

Other members of the research team include Kenneth H. Reckhow, professor of water resources at the Nicholas School; Karl G. Linden, assistant professor of civil engineering at Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering; and Michael T. Meyer of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Organic Geochemistry Research Laboratory at Lawrence, Kansas.

The team will work to establish a total facility estrogen budget based upon composite measurements of natural estrogenic compound throughout a swine farrowing CAFO, and to develop a Bayesian network model that will characterize causal relationships from the budget in a probabilistic manner.

“With this knowledge, we will be well poised to predict and determine the overall contribution of estrogenic compounds originating from differing swine operations,” they write.  “This will aid in developing a comprehensive understanding of the fate and movement of these compounds, their putative impact on surrounding environments and, ultimately, the impact of these agricultural practices on local and regional watersheds.”