Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 21, 1993 TAG: 9307210260
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
So surmise state officials and water experts, but it's an educated guess, at best.
"We have no ground-water monitoring network to speak of," said Jason Gray, of the Roanoke-based Virginia Water Project. "It's like driving down the road at night without the headlights on."
Gray's comment came during a public meeting Tuesday on a proposed statewide management plan to prevent pesticide contamination of ground water.
Based on a smattering of studies and samples, it appears that Virginia's ground water is not widely contaminated by the normal use of pesticides.
Nonetheless, the management plan will help regulators, pesticide users and the public get a better picture of this increasingly critical resource.
Some facts from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services:
Thirty-eight counties in Virginia rely exclusively on ground water for their public water supply.
There were 539,237 private household wells in 1990 in the state - mostly on farms.
About 84,000 new domestic wells were drilled from 1980 to 1990, often exceeding the number of public hookups in a county.
The reliance on ground water is growing, with about 124 billion gallons drawn each year.
While protecting ground water, the plan will allow growers, homeowners and others to continue using certain pesticides that are deemed necessary.
Some more facts:
Agriculture accounts for 70 percent of pesticide use in the state.
As of January 1992, there were 44,000 farms in Virginia, with total assets of $17.1 billion.
In 1991, growers produced $80 million in soybeans, $50 million in fruits and $100 million in greenhouse and nursery products.
"Without these [pesticides], the world could never have the type of foodstuffs we have, or at the prices we have," said G.H. Peery III, a Bland County farmer who served on the 25-member task force that developed the draft plan.
He added that farmers take good care of the land, which provides their livelihood.
But Polly Heiser, a Floyd County organic grower who attended the meeting, disagreed. She said the plan is too focused on keeping pesticides in use and that alternative methods of pest control are available, although not widely known.
"Organic farming does work," said Heiser, whose cooperative farm feeds about 55 families.
The proposed "generic" plan is the first step toward developing plans for individual pesticides as they are listed by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, a process that probably will begin later this year.
States must have the individual plans if they want to continue using pesticides on EPA's so-called "hit list" for crops, home pest control, industrial and other uses.
Marvin Lawson, director of the Office of Pesticide Management, said the Agriculture Department will have ultimate responsibility for monitoring specific pesticides.
The state's action will depend on the amount of pesticide detected in a well or group of wells. If contamination above a specific standard continues, the state could restrict or ban that pesticide, he said.
Montgomery and Rockingham counties will be the subject of separate studies this year that will help establish an ongoing monitoring survey.
Monitoring was only one of the tough issues faced by the task force. Water quality standards and funding were two more, Lawson said - namely, what standard should be used to determine contamination, and where the money is going to come from.
Water quality measurements are a complicated tangle of federal and state standards and are different for ground water and surface water.
Gray said some fellow members of the task force were angry that their recommendations for stricter standards were changed in the final draft.
However, Lawson and others at the meeting said the state's plan is in line with EPA's goal, and that contamination will be measured against drinking water standards.
As for funding, Lawson said the state has used an annual EPA grant of roughly $80,000 to develop the plan and will begin shifting some of that money toward monitoring.
He said that his office probably won't seek money from the General Assembly this year. In his opinion, he said, the legislators usually don't react until an issue reaches crisis mode - and that may be when the state has one year to develop a specific plan for a targeted pesticide.
by CNB