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Listen to this siteThursday 8 April 2004
This research project aims to investigate the contamination of pasture by flooding rivers as a potential source of dioxins and PCBs in cows' milk.
Study Duration : September 2003 to October 2004
Contractor : Central Science Laboratory
Sediment in rivers flowing through industrial or urban areas can contain relatively high levels of dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).
Consequently deposition of contaminated sediment onto floodplains when rivers flood could cause an increase in the levels of dioxins and/or PCBs in milk from cows grazing on flood-prone pasture.
This project is an extension to a previous study (project C01007). The original study showed that:
However, although matched samples of soil, grass and feed as well as milk were collected in the original study, only milk samples collected in October 1998 and March 1999 were analysed. The aim of the current project is to analyse matched soil, grass and feed samples collected during the original project as well as some milk samples that were collected in August 1999. This will provide valuable data on the correlation between the patterns and levels of dioxins and PCBs in corresponding samples of environmental media (grass and soil) and cows' milk form flood-prone and control sites. This will also provide new insights into the transfer and uptake of dioxins and PCBs into cows' milk from feed as well as from environmental media.
The following samples that were collected for project C01007 from farms with flood-prone pasture and from nearby control farms that do not flood will be analysed:
The results of these analyses will be interpreted together with those obtained in C01007. Further statistical investigations will be carried out, including principal component analysis to characterise the dioxin and PCB congener profiles in milk and other matrices. Comparison between the milk samples collected in October 1998 and August 1999 is expected to provide insight into the variation of dioxin and PCB concentrations in successive grazing seasons. Analysis of the feed samples will allow the relationship between the dioxin and PCB patterns in feed and the changes in dioxin and PCB concentrations in milk between October 1998 and March 1999 to be assessed. The concentrations and patterns of dioxins and PCBs in soil and/or grass samples will be compared with matched milk samples. This is expected to be informative in determining the significance of flooding as a pathway contributing to the presence of dioxins and PCBs in milk from cows grazing on flood-prone pasture.
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