Treated wood in livestock facilities:
relationships among residues of
pentachlorophenol, dioxins, and furans in wood and beef

Environmental Pollution, v.116, i.2, Feb02

G.F. Fries a * gffries@starpower.net, V.J. Feil b, R.G. Zaylskie b, K.M. Bialek a and C.P. Rice a

a Beltville Agricultural Research Center, ARS, USDA, 10300 Baltimore Avenue, Beltsville, MD 20705, USA
b Biosciences Research Laboratory, ARS, USDA, PO Box 5676, Fargo, ND 58105, USA
Received 7 August 2000; accepted 24 February 2001

Ingestion of PCP-treated wood is shown to be a potentially important source of PCDD/F residues in US cattle.

Abstract

Wood and other environmental samples were collected from sites that produced beef with higher than average residues of dibenzo-p-dioxin (PCDD) and dibenzofuran (PCDF). Analyses of these samples for PCDD/Fs and pentachlorophenol (PCP) indicated that the high beef residues were associated with PCP-treated wood in the animal facilities. Concentrations of PCDD/Fs in wood as toxic equivalents ranged from 10 to 320,000 pg/g. These concentrations were closely related to the concentrations of PCP, indicating that analysis for PCP provides an economical method to identify wood with high concentrations of PCDD/Fs. Further evidence for the PCP-treated wood as the source of the beef residues is provided by the similarity of the congener profiles in beef from the sites and those profiles predicted from the profiles in wood.

Keywords: Dioxins; Furans; Pentachlorophenol; Wood; Beef; Residues
*Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-301-504-8400; fax: +1-301-504-8438