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In this study, livestock wastewater treatment plants in South Korea were monitored to determine the characteristics of influent and effluent wastewater, containing four types of veterinary antibiotics (sulfamethazine, sulfathiazole, chlortetracycline, oxytetracycline), and the removal efficiencies of different treatment processes. Chlortetracycline had the highest average influent concentration (483.7 μg/L), followed by sulfamethazine (251.2 μg/L), sulfathiazole (230.8 μg/L) and oxytetracycline (25.7 μg/L), at five livestock wastewater treatment plants. Sulfathiazole had the highest average effluent concentration (28.2 μg/L), followed by sulfamethazine (20.8 μg/L) and chlortetracycline (11.5 μg/L), while no oxytetracycline was detected. For veterinary antibiotics in the wastewater, a removal efficiency of at least 90% was observed with five types of treatment processes, including a bio-ceramic sequencing batch reactor, liquid-phase flotation, membrane bioreactor, bioreactor plus ultrafiltration (BIOSUF) and bio best bacillus systems. Moreover, this study evaluated the removal efficiency via laboratory-scale experiments on the conventional contaminants, such as organic matter, nitrogen, phosphorus and veterinary antibiotics. This was done using the hydraulic retention time (HRT), under three temporal conditions (14 h, 18 h, 27 h), using the anaerobic–anoxic–oxic (A2O) process, in an attempt to assess the combined livestock wastewater treatment process where the livestock wastewater is treated until certain levels of water quality are achieved, and then the effluent is discharged to nearby sewage treatment plants for further treatment. The removal efficiencies of veterinary antibiotics, especially oxytetracycline and chlortetracycline, were 86.5–88.8% and 87.9–90.8%, respectively, exhibiting no significant differences under various HRT conditions. The removal efficiency of sulfamethazine was at least 20% higher at HRT = 27 h than at HRT = 14 h, indicating that sulfamethazine was efficiently removed in the A2O process with increased HRT. This study is expected to promote a comprehensive understanding of the behavior and removal of veterinary antibiotics in the livestock wastewater treatment plants of South Korea.

In order to examine the forms, sources, and pollution of heavy metals—arsenic (As), aluminum (Al), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb), and zinc (Zn)—in Daechung Lake, Korea, sediment samples were collected in November 2014. Daechung Lake was constructed to supply water for human consumption, agricultural use, and industrial use as well as to generate electric power. The lake is stratified in the summer and surrounded mostly by agricultural and mining areas. Our results indicate that the heavy metals (except As and Cd) displayed similar concentrations at all of the sampling stations. As and Cd were high in locations where fine sediments had built up. Based on the enrichment factor of the metals, the sediments collected from all of the sampling stations were highly polluted by As and Cd. Therefore, deposition of heavy metals in Daechung Lake is possibly controlled by grain size and anthropogenic activity, such as drainage from abandoned mines, agricultural activities, and/or the release of wastewater. The most dominant forms for all of the metals were oxide and silicate forms. This suggests that the sediments of Daechung Lake are not highly sulfidic. However, the sediment samples were collected after the collapse of seasonal stratification. Therefore, future studies should include elucidation of major sources for As and Cd and the collection of sediments during months of stratification.