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Major decrease in residues in municipal drinking water, study
shows
Water quality is a good news story according to the results of a
long-term provincial government study into the presence of
pesticides in Ontario’s municipal drinking water.
The results showed a massive decrease in pesticide presence in
treated surface water, from 86 per cent of samples in 1986 to
only three per cent in 2006. And all of the incidences
discovered in this recent round of testing were below the
thresholds that Health Canada – the federal government body
responsible for food and health – have deemed to be acceptable.
Water sources sampled in this study represent about 90 per cent
of Ontario’s municipal residential water systems, including many
from agriculturally dense regions, where the vast majority of
pesticides are used in Ontario.
The study results are welcome news for farmers, who are often
under fire from environmental activists as well as consumers and
government, for using crop protection products to help them grow
their crops.
“As farmers, we’ve always been saying that we’re doing a good job with
the environment, but this actually proves it,” says Brian
Gilroy, an apple grower from the Meaford area. “We work hard to
manage the land, the water and our crops as best as we can to
protect both the environment and produce safe, healthy food for
consumers.”
Gilroy adds it’s an excellent indication that farmers are using
pesticides responsibly and that training programs are working.
Over the last two decades, at the same time as residue levels in
the water have been declining, Ontario farmers have also
voluntarily reduced their use of pesticides by more than 50 per
cent.
This decrease is due in large part to a farmer-requested
government program that requires all farmers to take a course on
safe handling, use and storage if they want to buy and use crop
protection materials – and certification has to be renewed every
five years to make sure their knowledge keeps up with new
advances in technology.
“There’s no denying that better training for farmers has made an
impact in how we use products, how much we’re using and when
we’re using them,” says potato grower Chris Kowalski who farms
in the Alliston area. “The good old days of farming weren’t so
good when you consider the kinds of products on the market and
how they were being used.”
Newer, safer crop protection products have been coming to market
as the Canadian government strengthens its regulatory
requirements for new product registrations. At the same time,
older, less advanced and less targeted products have been
withdrawn from use.
Farmers have also been increasingly working with an approach
called integrated pest management. In essence, this system uses
beneficial insects to target problem pests in a crop,
eliminating the need for more traditional crop protection
methods.
The survey results also show that on-farm conservation practices
such as grassed water ways and buffer zones around creeks and
streams are making positive impacts on preventing pesticides
from getting into water sources. The Environmental Farm Plan
program is a big factor in this success. Over the last five
years alone, Ontario farmers have invested approximately $167
million of their own dollars in 18,700 on-farm environmental
improvement projects, supported by government cost-share
contributions of approximately $103 million.
The survey results are especially remarkable when advances in
testing practices are taken into consideration, says Gilroy. The
exactitude of modern detection techniques means that residues
are now being found at parts per billion or even trillion, where
20 years ago, they were being measured in parts per million. One
part per billion is approximately equivalent to one dollar out
of one billion dollars.
“What people need to remember is that farmers have as strong an
interest as anyone in keeping our water supply healthy,” says
Kowalski. “My family drinks the water from the well on our farm
and eats the potatoes that we grow. There’s no way I’d ever do
anything to harm the health of my family – or anyone else’s.”
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