Pesticides |
U.S. Geological Circular 1225--The Quality of Our Nation's Waters--Nutrients and Pesticides
Results of NAWQA studies show that pesticides are widespread in streams and ground water sampled within agricultural and urban areas of the Nation. As expected, the most heavily used compounds are found most often, occurring in geographic and seasonal patterns that mainly correspond to distributions of land use and associated pesticide use.
The frequency of pesticide contamination, however, is greater than expected. At least one pesticide was found in almost every water and fish sample collected from streams and in about one-half of all wells sampled. Moreover, individual pesticides seldom were found alone--almost every water and fish sample from streams and about one-half of samples from wells with a detected pesticide contained two or more pesticides.
For individual pesticides in drinking water, NAWQA results are generally good news relative to current water-quality standards and guidelines. Average concentrations in streams and wells rarely exceeded standards and guidelines established to protect human health. For aquatic life and wildlife, however, NAWQA results indicate a high potential for problems in many streams, particularly in urban areas, where concentrations of more than one pesticide often approached or exceeded established water-quality guidelines.
Important questions remain unanswered about potential risks of pesticide contamination to humans and the environment. Currently, standards and guidelines are available only for a limited number of individual pesticides, do not account for mixtures of pesticides or for pesticide breakdown products, and are based on tests that have assessed a limited range of potential health and ecological effects. Long-term exposure to low-level mixtures of pesticide compounds, punctuated with seasonal pulses of higher concentrations, is the most common pattern of exposure, but the effects of this pattern are not yet well understood.
The uncertainty about whether present-day levels of pesticide contamination are a threat to human health or the environment makes it imperative that we document and understand the nature of pesticide exposure, the causes of contamination, and the actions we can take to reduce pesticide levels in streams and ground water.
