HAZARD EVALUATION & EMERGENCY RESPONSE (HEER) OFFICE

The following spreadsheet provides raw data from the 2013-14 Statewide project.

• Pesticide Detections in Relation to Standards and Benchmarks
• Graph Showing Frequency of Detections by Compound Grouped by Class
• Graph Comparing Detections between Land Uses
• Raw Laboratory Data Results in Excel format – Updated 5-22-14

• US Geological Survey Resources

  As the Nation’s largest water, earth, and biological science and civilian mapping agency, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) collects, monitors, analyzes, and provides scientific understanding about natural resource conditions, issues, and problems. As part of the National Water-Quality Assessment Program (NAWQA), the Pesticide National Synthesis Project, which began in 1992, is a national-scale assessment of the occurrence and behavior of pesticides in streams and ground water of the United States and the potential for pesticides to adversely affect drinking-water supplies or aquatic ecosystems.

  Two studies conducted by USGS in Hawaiʻi specifically discuss pesticides in surface and groundwater and how they relate to current and former land uses. The report entitled Water Quality on the Island of Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi, 1999–2001 contains the major findings of a 1999–2001 assessment of pesticides in surface and groundwater on the island of Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi, and provide an excellent reference to understand how pesticide detections reflect upgradient human activities, and how groundwater can store and transport historically used pesticides into streams. The earlier study, Ground-Water Quality and its Relation to Land Use on Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi, 2000-01 measured the presence of a wide spectrum on organic contaminants in the main drinking-water source aquifers of Oʻahu using a one-time sampling of untreated ground water from 30 public-supply wells and 15 monitoring wells. Both of these reports describe earlier detections of a number of the same current and historically used pesticides detected in our Pesticide Survey.

  Glyphosate Studies USGS leads the country in assessing our streams and lakes for glyphosate and its breakdown product, AMPA in round water and surface waters. Recently, they have begun studying bed sediment concentrations, because glyphosate is known to bind tightly to sediments. Click here for a summary of their current work and publications.

• Standards, Guidelines and Benchmark Resources for Assessing Water Quality and Bed Sediment Data Results

  For our initial evaluation of the data, we referred to the following sources of information to find appropriate regulatory standards, guidelines and benchmarks for the pesticides we detected.

  USGS National Water-Quality Assessment Program. Prioritizing Pesticide Compounds for Analytical Methods Development, Appendix 3. Aquatic-Life and Human-Health Benchmarks Used in the Evaluation of Pesticides for Water and

  Appendix 4. Aquatic-Life Benchmarks or Toxicity Values With Resulting Aquatic-Life Toxicity Bins and Available Sediment Benchmarks Used in the Evaluation of Pesticides for Sediment provide a detailed summary of the various benchmarks USGS routinely uses to evaluate water quality data.

  For most current updates on individual Benchmarks, Toxicity Values and other outside reference sources, these two links are very helpful:

  • USGS NAWQA Pesticide National Synthesis Project, Types and Sources of Water-Quality Benchmarks for Pesticides
  • EPA Office of Pesticide Programs Aquatic Life Benchmarks