Impacts of leachates from livestock carcass burial and manure heap sites on groundwater geochemistry and microbial community structure.

We investigated the impacts of leachates from a swine carcass burial site and a cow manure heap on the geochemical and microbiological properties of agricultural water samples, including leachate, groundwater from monitoring wells and background wells, and stream water. The leachate from the livestock burial site showed extremely high electrical conductivity, turbidity, and major ion concentrations, but low redox potential and dissolved oxygen levels. The groundwater in the monitoring wells adjacent to both sites showed severe contamination from the leachate, as indicated by the increases in EC, turbidity, Cl-, and SO42-.