Pesticide Contamination in Varied Pesticide-Use Settings

New pesticides are developed continually, and increasingly, degradation byproducts of legacy and current-use pesticides are discovered. Information on the environmental occurrence of these chemicals is needed to evaluate their potential environmental and human health significance. This project activity has two-fold objectives: (1) develop methods to measure new pesticides and their byproducts in samples of various environmental media at concentrations relevant to assessing their persistence, transport, and fate; and (2) gather information on the environmental occurrence of these chemicals in sensitive and/or susceptible ecosystems near areas of common use of the pesticide, such as areas of similar land use, crop types, and/or farming practices. Pesticide-use studies in selected settings include:

Herbicides and other Agricultural Chemicals -- Midwest Cornbelt

Cotton Agriculture -- Southern United States

Agricultural Chemicals in Ground Water -- Plains, Georgia [Completed]

Transport of Herbicides in Streams and Shallow Ground Water , Cedar River, Iowa [Completed]

Program Headlines Related to Pesticide Research

• Glyphosate Found in Wastewater Discharged to Streams
• A Decade of Research on the Occurrence of Triazine Herbicides in the Environment Leads to a Unique Summary
• Glyphosate Herbicide Found in Many Midwestern Streams, Antibiotics Not Common
• Measuring New Pesticides and How they Transform in the Environment
• Management Practices a Factor in Herbicide Declines
• Tracking Atrazine and a Breakdown Product (deethylatrazine) through a Drinking-Water Reservoir
• Degradates: A Key to Assessing Herbicide Impacts in Streams
• Science of the Total Environment Special Issue on Agricultural Chemicals

Fact Sheets

• A Reconnaissance for Sulfonylurea Herbicides in Waters of the Midwestern USA: An Example of Collaboration Between the Public and Private Sectors: USGS Fact Sheet FS-046-98
• Agricultural Chemicals in Iowa's Ground Water, 1982-95 -- What are the Trends: USGS Fact Sheet FS-116-97
• Bioremediation--Nature's Way to a Cleaner Environment: USGS Fact Sheet FS-O54-95
• Diazinon Concentrations in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers and San Francisco Bay, California, February 1993: USGS Open-File Report 93-440
• Discharge of Herbicides from the Mississippi River Basin to the Gulf of Mexico, 1991-97: USGS Fact Sheet FS-163-98
• Effects of Recharge on the Transport of Agricultural Chemicals at the Princeton, Minnesota Management Systems Evaluation Area, 1991-92: USGS Open-File Report 93-79
• Herbicides in Ground Water of the Midwest--A Regional Study of Shallow Aquifers, 1991-94: USGS Fact Sheet FS-076-98
• Herbicides in Midwestern Reservoir Outflows, 1992-93: USGS Fact Sheet FS-134-98
• Herbicides in Rainfall Across the Midwestern and Northeastern United States, 1990-91: USGS Fact Sheet FS-181-97
• Nitrogen in the Mississippi Basin--Estimating Sources and Predicting Flux to the Gulf of Mexico: USGS Fact Sheet FS-135-00
• Occurrence of Cotton Pesticides in Surface Water of the Mississippi Embayment: USGS Fact Sheet FS-022-98
• Vulnerability of Public Drinking Water Supplies in New Jersey to Pesticides USGS Fact Sheet FS-165-96

New Publications

• The occurrence of glyphosate, atrazine, and other pesticides in vernal pools and adjacent streams in Washington, DC, Maryland, Iowa, and Wyoming, 2005Ð2006: Battaglin, W.A., Rice, K.C., Focazio, M.J., Salmons, S., and Barry, R.X., 2008, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, doi:10.1007/s10661-008-0435-y (Advanced Web release).
• Occurrence of pyrethroids in bed and suspended sediments in California: Hladik, M.L., and Kuivila, K.M., 2008, in Gan, J.J., Spurlock, F., Hendley, P., and Weston, D., eds., Synthetic Pyrethroids--Occurrence and Behavior in Aquatic Environments: ACS Symposium Series 991, p. 55-71.
• A decade of measuring, monitoring, and studying the fate and transport of triazine herbicides in groundwater, surface water, reservoirs, and precipitation by the U.S. Geological Survey (Chapter 30): Thurman, E.M., and Scribner, E.A., 2008 in LeBaron, H.M., McFarland, J., and Burnside, O., eds., The Triazine Herbicides, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Elsevier Science, ISBN:978-0-444-51167-6.
• Analysis of chlorothalonil and three degradates in sediment and soil: Hladik, M.L., and Kuivila, K.M., 2008, Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, v. 56, no. 7, p. 2310-2314, doi:10.1021/jf703695s.
• Occurrence of chlorothalonil, its transformation products, and selected other pesticides in Texas and Oklahoma streams, 2003-2004: Battaglin, W.A., Kuivila, K., Winton, K., and Meyer, M., 2008, U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2008–5016, 9 p.
• A multi-residue method for the analysis of pesticides and pesticide degradates in water using HLB solid-phase extraction and gas chromatography--ion trap mass spectrometry: Hladik, M.L., Smalling, K.L., and Kuivila, K.M., 2008, Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, v. 80, no. 2, p. 139-144, doi:10.1007/s00128-007-9332-2.