Cadmium and lead in bovine milk in the mining area of the Caudal River (Spain) José Ramiro González-Montaña & Enrique Senís & Abner Gutiérrez & Felipe Prieto Received: 17 December 2009 / Accepted: 15 July 2011 / Published online: 29 July 2011 # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 Abstract The levels of cadmium and lead in 36 raw bovine milk samples were analysed. These samples come from seven farms with a semi-extensive grazing system and were collected between the autumn of 2007 and the winter of 2008. All the farms were located in Asturias (Spain), a zone of great industrial and mining activity in the proximities of the Caudal River. The samples were collected in sterile pre- cleaned polypropylene tubes and frozen until the analysis. After a lyophilization process, the samples were treated with nitric acid and microwave treat- ment. Cadmium and lead determinations were carried out using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrom- etry with sensibility under 0.2 ppb for liquid matrix. The lead content was found to vary from 0.71 to 16.06 μg/kg wet weight (w.w.), and the cadmium was lower than 2 μg/kg w.w. The levels of lead in milk are higher in those farms near zones of storage of mining waste depots, thermal power and areas with high levels of traffic. All the values found are in concor- dance with research carried out at non-polluted areas, and those for the lead are well below the European Union limitations. Keywords Lead . Cadmium . Milk . Mining . Caudal River Introduction The rapid development of our society has meant that over the last decades, priority has been given to industrial production, without taking into account the environmental impact, or the repercussions of these industries upon human or animal health. This has caused a wide distribution in the environment of heavy metals like lead, cadmium and other pollutants, facilitating their entry in the trophic chain. Animal origin products play an important role in human diet. Specifically, milk and dairy products may represent just over 15% of the total mass eaten per day in Western countries (Pavlovic et al. 2004) and acquire a special significance in infant nutrition (Tripathi et al. 1999). The determination of the residual concentrations of metals in milk could be an important direct indicator of the hygienic status of the milk and an indirect indicator of the level of pollution of the area in which the milk was produced (Simsek et al. 2000; Serdaru et al. 2001; Licata et al. 2004; Pavlovic et al. 2004; Ghindini et al. 2005). It can be stated that high levels of cadmium and lead in milk could be a potential risk and a public health problem (Pavlovic et al. 2004; Swarup et al. 2005). There is a direct link between the heavy metal atmospheric deposits and the Environ Monit Assess (2012) 184:4029–4034 DOI 10.1007/s10661-011-2241-1 J. R. González-Montaña (*) : E. Senís : A. Gutiérrez : F. Prieto Medicine, Surgery and Anatomy Veterinary Department, Veterinary Faculty, University of León, Campus de Vegazana, 24071 León, Spain e-mail: jramirogonzalez@unileon.es