Groundwater, contamination with pesticide

A.D. Kligerman, R.E. Chapin, G.L. Erexson, D.R. Germolec, P. Kwanyuen, R.S.H. Yang. Analyses of cytogenetic damage in rodents following exposure to simulated groundwater contaminated with pesticides. Mutation Research, Vol. 300, pgs. 125-134,1993. 

The Geo-Cleanse process remediates soil and groundwater contaminated with organic compounds including fuel oils, gasoline, solvents, halogenated compounds, pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and other organic contaminants. 

ISOTEC is a technology that uses the periodic injection of hydrogen peroxide and proprietary catalysts to oxidize organic contaminants in situ. According to the vendor, this technology can treat soil and groundwater contaminated with chlorinated compounds, petroleum hydrocarbons, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), trichloroethene (TCE), tetrachloroethene (PCE), pesticides, herbicides, as well as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene (BTEX). The ISOTEC technology is commercially available. 

There are other advantages, too. With lower levels of insecticide, wildlife are not apt to be affected and environmental problems associated with pesticide use, e.g., groundwater contamination and pesticide translocation, will definitely be diminished or eliminated. 

Zaki MH. 1986. Groundwater contamination with synthetic organic compounds and pesticides. Northeastern Environmental Science 5 15-22. 

Rice culture contributes to environmental contamination with pesticides, leading to soil, surface, and groundwater quality degradation, which may have negative impacts on public health and biodiversity. Atrazine, molinate, and bentazone are examples of herbicides of concern. The electrokinetic process is able to remove these herbicides from soils, since they are all mobilized in the soil solution, under the action of an electric held. The case study presented showed the following ... 

Another important test location factor is the availability of water for irrigation and for preparation of the spray solution. The use of culinary water sources (either private or public water sources intended for human consumption) or groundwater (from wells) is usually less problematic than using water from surface sources (rivers, lakes, or canals). If surface water is used for the study, care must be taken to ensure that farm production activities upstream from the plot area have not contaminated the water supply with pesticides that could contaminate the plot area. Careful site selection will help avoid problems from the water available at the site. 

A possible source of groundwater contamination, which has up to now almost been neglected, is associated with the introduction of surfactants into soils as pesticide additives (Table 6.7.3). Non-ionic surfactants composed of alcohols and fatty acids are most widely recommended as adjuvants to facilitate and enhance the absorbing, emulsifying, dispersing, wetting and penetrating properties of pesticides. Other pesticide adjuvants are silicone-based surfactants,... 

Spliid and Kpppen described a method using LLE and LC-APCI-MS for the analysis of water. The method proposed was then used to investigate the contamination of Danish ground-water with pesticides. More than 200 samples of groundwater collected from various areas of the country were analyzed. Metramitron was detected one or more times in concentrations ranging from the detection limit level to 19 /rg/L (32). 

As discussed earlier in Section 3.17, the excessive application of arsenic-bearing pesticides and phosphate fertilizers on agricultural lands, golf courses, and lawns may locally contaminate surface waters and ground-waters (Welch et al., 2000), (Lewis et al., 2002), 590. Phosphates desorb arsenic from mineral surfaces and readily interfere with the sorption and coprecipitation of arsenic onto iron (oxy)(hydr)oxides (Campos, 2002). Commercial phosphate fertilizers also frequently contain >13 mg kg-1 of arsenic impurities (Campos, 2002), which may further contribute to groundwater contamination. 

Nonpoint sources of pollution are more difficult to measure because they often cover large areas or are a composite of numerous point sources. Examples of nonpoint sources include pesticide and fertilizer runoff from agricultural fields, and urban runoff contaminated with pollutants from automobile emissions. Nonpoint sources may not be directly located next to a surface water body pollutants may be transported to surface waters by runoff from the land, by groundwater inflow, or by atmospheric transport. 

Subsurface soils and groundwaters can become contaminated with heavy metal as a result of a number of activities, including the application of industrial waste, fertilizers, and pesticides mining, smelting, and metal plating/metal finishing operations automobile battery production vehicle emissions and fly-ash from combustionAncineration processes. 

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