Insecticides, in contrast to herbicides, were not detected in a number of ground-water studies and, where detected, were usually found in less than 10 percent of wells. The most frequently detected insecticides in ground water were dieldrin and diazinon, although each was found in only 1 to 2 percent of all wells. The relative abundance of dieldrin was unexpected because of its low mobility in water compared with many currently used pesticides. Dieldrin, however, is one of the more mobile compounds within the historically used organochlorine group. Moreover, it is long-lived in the environment, which results in its great persistence in the ground-water flow system.
Although insecticides were much less common than herbicides in ground water, they exceeded drinking-water standards or guidelines more often. In all but one well where exceedances occurred, dieldrin was the insecticide that exceeded the guideline. The guideline used for dieldrin is a USEPA Risk Specific Dose of 0.02 µg/L, which corresponds to a cancer risk level of 1 in 100,000. The wells that exceeded the Risk Specific Dose for dieldrin were mainly wells tapping shallow ground water that is not used for human consumption.
he infrequent but potentially important occurrences of dieldrin in some wells may be the result of local contamination of individual wells. The combination of relatively shallow ground water and pesticide use in the vicinity of wells increases the likelihood that some wells will have flow pathways that allow pesticides to move from the land surface to the well, sometimes down the borehole itself.
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DIELDRIN PERSISTS IN SHALLOW URBAN GROUND WATERIn the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin, insecticide concentrations in ground-water samples generally were less than current drinking-water standards or guidelines. However, dieldrin concentrations in water samples collected during 1994-95 from 5 of 37 shallow wells and springs in Metropolitan Atlanta exceeded the USEPA Risk Specific Dose of 0.02 µg/L, which corresponds to a cancer risk level of 1 in 100,000. Dieldrin and aldrin, which breaks down to dieldrin in the environment, had been used on agricultural land prior to 1975 and for structural termite control until 1987.(36) Although this ground water is not used as a source of drinking water, the presence of dieldrin in ground-water samples collected several years after being banned is indicative of the compound's persistence in soils and ground water and its potential to be a problem in some wells. |
