Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
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fromCooperative Extension Services and other offices seeks to educate rural
residents about well water contamination from pesticides (Trautmann et al.
1998). They note that “between 1950 and 1980 the production of synthetic
organic pesticides more than tripled in the United States” and “22 pesticides
have been detected in U.S. wells.” Another informational pamphlet notes
that “the higher a pesticide's water solubility, the greater the amount of
pesticide that can be carried in solution to groundwater” and “coarse, sandy
soils with low organic content allowmore rapid movement of surface water
downward” (Dixon et al. 1992).
Establishment of drinking water standards is a complex process, with
many estimates and assumptions. Data are often inadequate or complicated
by the fact that laboratory animal data have to be used to estimate health
effects in humans. Drinking water standards represent what authorities
believe to be the acceptable level of risk to people exposed to chemicals in
drinking water. The Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 requires the EPA to set
drinking water standards for public water systems that provide water to at
least fifteen connections or twenty-five persons at least sixty days out of the
year (USEPA 1999). Relevant to the concern about pesticides in our water,
the EPA publishes data that list varying levels of cancer risks for chemicals
found in drinking water. It is eerie information, reducing serious illnesses
like cancer to abstract impersonal numbers. They also note contaminant
levels for 10-4 Cancer Risk, which is defined as “the concentration of a
chemical in drinking water corresponding to an excess estimated lifetime
cancer risk of 1 in 10,000”(USEPA-Standards 2002). USEPA has set standards
for approximately twenty-two agrichemical pesticide and nitrate contami-
nants (USEPA-Contaminants 2003), thus for most pesticides, drinking water
standards have yet to be set.
The EPA has set aMaximumContaminant Level Goal (MCLG) which is the
contaminant level with no known health risk. But the enforceable standard
is the Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL), which is the allowed amount
of a contaminant, considering available technology and cost (USEPA 1999).
According to the U.S. EPA's Safe DrinkingWater Hotline, “Health advisories
such as boil water notices or 'do not drink' orders are determined by state
and local agencies. EPA does not have a national database of health advisory
occurrences.” The health advisory and violation data are collected at the
state level, and most states submit reports to the USEPA (USEPA-Compliance
2000). Yet this does not provide an accurate view of agrichemical contami-
nation for drinking water, because the results simply list reported violations
of “synthetic organic chemicals” (USEPA - Factoids 2003) but not the specific
pesticides, and of coursemany pesticides are not included because no drink-
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