Communicating about pesticides in drinking water

Half of all Americans get their drinking water from wells supplied by groundwater. In some cases, the presence of pesticides in this water may pose human health risks. Not too many years ago, the public and many professionals believed that our groundwater was invulnerable. It was widely believed, for example, that any impurities that water picked up on the surface would be filtered out as it seeped through underground layers of rock and soil. Today we know that this is not the case. Data provided to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) through state water monitoring programs in recent years have demonstrated that pesticides as well as other chemicals are, in some cases, seeping into groundwater and showing up in our drinking water. Temic in New York and California and EDB in Florida and Hawaii were some of the first problems identified (Churchville 1983).