Environmental Cycling of Organoarsenic Compounds

Roxarsone, an organoarsenic compound, is added to poultry feed at 22.7 to 45.5 g per ton, for the purpose of improving weight gain, feed efficiency, and pigmentation. Previous studies have demonstrated that these organoarsenic compounds do not accumulate in poultry tissue or feathers but are rapidly excreted, resulting in elevated concentrations of arsenic (20 to 40 mg/kg) in poultry litter.  The central objective of our study is to gain new and fundamental insights into factors that control the fate and transport of arsenic compounds in agricultural watersheds. We are currently conducting detailed field monitoring in an agricultural watershed in the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia. Using the knowledge gained from monitoring, laboratory studies, and soil analysis, we will be able to evaluate the fate of organoarsenic compounds in agricultural watersheds.

Publications

Harvey MC and Schreiber ME. Adsorption of roxarsone to goethite to kaolinite. Geological Society of America Annual Meeting Oct 21-24, 2006, Philadelphia PA.

Diesel E, Schreiber ME. 2006. The mobility of arsenic adsorbed to particulates within agricultural watersheds. Geological Society of America Annual Meeting Oct 21-24, 2006, Philadelphia PA.

Harvey MC. Adsorption of roxarsone to kaolinite and goethite. MS Thesis, Department of Geosciences, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg VA.

Brown BL, Slaughter AD, Schreiber ME. 2005. Controls on arsenic transport within agricultural watersheds. Applied Geochemistry 20 (1): 123-133.

Schreiber ME. 2004. Organoarsenic fate and transport in agricultural watersheds. Proceedings of the 2004 Virginia Water Resources Research Symposium, Blacksburg, Virginia, Oct 4-6, 2004.

Schreiber ME, Chambers D, J White. 2004. Cycling of organoarsenic compounds in agricultural watersheds. American Geophysical Union Meeting, San Francisco CA.

Barnhart-Slaughter A, Schreiber ME, Brown BL. 2003. Biotransformation of roxarsone, an organoarsenic feed additive. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs vol. 35, no. 6.

Brown BL and Schreiber ME. 2002. The sorption and extraction of roxarsone, an organoarsenic feed additive. Proceedings of the 2002 Virginia Water Resources Research Symposium, Roanoke, Virginia, Nov 5-6, 2002.