IN THE PROPOSED PROJECT WE WILL QUANTIFY LOSS OF HEAVY METALS IN LEACHATE FROM FIELDS FERTILIZED WITH ANIMAL MANURE. THE STUDY SITES ARE LOCATED IN ALABAMA. THE MAJOR GOAL OF THIS PROJECT IS TO DETERMINE THE INFLUENCE OF SOIL MACROPORE CHARACTERISTICS ON HEAVY METAL LOSSES IN LEACHATE. MACROPORE CHARACTERISTICS IN SOIL CORES COLLECTED FROM AGRICULTURAL FIELDS WILL BE DETERMINED USING X-RAY COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY. INFLUENCE OF SOIL MACROPORE CHARACTERISTICS ON HEAVY METAL LOSSES IN LEACHATE WILL BE QUANTIFIED. DATA OBTAINED FROM THE X-RAY COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY AND LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS WILL BE USED TO PARAMETRIZE A MODEL TO SIMULATE TRANSPORT PROCESSES OF HEAVY METALS. IN THE LONG-TERM, DATA GENERATED FROM THIS PROJECT WILL HELP IN DEVELOPMENT OF BEST MANAGEMENT PRACTICES AIMED AT MITIGATING LOSS OF CONTAMINANTS FROM AGRICULTURAL FIELDS FERTILIZED WITH ANIMAL WASTE.