Excerpt from Atrazine in Surface Waters: A Report of the Atrazine Task Group to the Working Group on Water Quality; April 1992

In February 1989, the President's Initiative on Water Quality proposed a vigorous national effort to protect groundwater and surface waters from contamination by agricultural chemicals and wastes, especially pesticides and nutrients.

Named the lead agency in the Initiative, the usda developed a Water Quality Program to minimize the risk of contaminating groundwater and surface waters with agricultural chemicals. The Working Group on Water Quality (wowo) is an interdepartmental group established to carry out this program. It includes 12 usda agencies, along with the us. Geological Survey (usgs); the us. Environmental Protection Agency (epa); the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (noaa); the us. Army Corps of Engineers; the Fish and Wildlife Service; and the Tennessee Valley Authority (tva).

As another part of the President's Initiative, the usgs monitored the Mississippi River and some of its tributaries to determine the presence, levels, and variability of selected pesticides in the water. They found that 1) increased concentrations of dissolved atrazine occur in the river system for 4 to 6 weeks following corn planting; 2) the concentrations of dissolved atrazine vary by as much as one order of magnitude above background levels; 3) increased levels are associated with rainfall; 4) individual elevations are relatively short-lived; and 5) levels occasionally exceed three parts per billion (ppb).

It should be noted that background levels, generally, are in the range of ppb or less; that some observed spikes have exceeded 12 ppb; and that the fate of atrazine spikes has not been studied with regard to their dilution during movement in rivers.

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