Maximum Contaminant Levels pesticides

EPA requires industry to report spills of more than 5,000 pounds of aluminum sulfate. Special regulations are set for aluminum phosphide because it is a pesticide. EPA has recommended a Secondary Maximum Contaminant Level (SMCL) of 0.05 to 0.2 milligrams per liter (mg/L) for aluminum in drinking water. The SMCL is not a based on levels that will affect humans or animals. It can be based on taste, smell, or color. OSHA says that the amount of aluminum dusts that workers breathe should be not more than 15 milligrams per cubic meter (mg/m3) of air. FDA has determined that aluminum cooking utensils, aluminum foil, antiperspirants, antacids, and other aluminum products are generally safe. To learn more, see Chapter 7. 

The widespread application of herbicides in agriculture has resulted in many polluted surface waters. As a result, numerous pesticides/herbicides have been treated in bench-scale laboratory studies with 03/UV/H202 processes during the last 10 years (see Table 10). Among them, many studies focused on the treatment of atrazine and other. v-triazine herbicides (simazine, prop-azine, etc.). Atrazine is a priority pollutant that similar to other individual pesticides has a very low maximum contaminant level (MCL) (0.1 pg L 1 for the European Environmental Commission according to Directive 80/778/ EEC). In some countries atrazine cannot be used but it is still found in many surface waters. In France, for example, atrazine was banned on September 28, 2001. From applied technologies, only carbon adsorption [180] and possibly advanced oxidations can be recommended to remove some of these... 

The EPA goal is to manage pesticides to protect the groundwater resource. This would include the use of maximum contamination levels (MCLs), the enforceable drinking water standards, established under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), as reference points to determine the unacceptable levels of pesticides in groundwater sources. 

It is under the SDWA that standards have been set for 22 substances in drinking water whether the source is surface or underground. These standards are referred to as Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs) and include the six pesticides referred to earlier in this paper. Regulations also provide for the establishment of Recommended Maximum Contaminant Levels (RMCLs). RMCLs are... 

A statistical survey study ( 5) conducted for the EPA by Cornell University researchers reported that 63% of rural homes have contaminated drinking water nearly 30% have excessive bacterial counts but few have detectable pesticide residues. Samples from wells at 267 sites were selected for analysis. The analyses were limited to only those six pesticides for which maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) are nationally established. Results of the study showed ... 

The EPA sets the amount of a specific contaminant that may be present in drinking water [7]. Primary standards are expressed by maximum contamination levels (MCLs) applied to substances that may have an adverse effect on health, whereas secondary standards are related to compounds that affect color, taste, smell, and other physical characteristics of water. The MCLs established included inorganic and organic chemicals and among them, a variety of pesticides. 

Despite the fact that the average consumption of pesticides are still low in India, (05kg ha-1) against 6.6 and 12kg ha-1 in Korea and Japan, respectively, there has been widespread contamination of food commodities with pesticide residues, basically due to their non-judicious use. In a recent review Gupta (2004) has stated that in India, 51% of food commodities are contaminated with pesticide residues and out of these, 20% have residues above the maximum permissible residue levels on a worldwide basis. 

Amounts of pesticides and their metabolites above their maximum residue limits (MRLs) in drinking waters and foods have pathogenic effects on humans and animals. This has raised the need for fast, sensitive methods for the routine analysis of various classes of pesticides in environmental and physiological matrices. It is especially important to control the contaminant levels in foodstuffs and also of envirorunental (surface, groimd)... 

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