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Water Quality FAQ

Doesn’t the County Health Department test your well water for you?

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They only test for e.Coli, which is a bacteria, usually a consequence of fecal matter in or near the water.  Once a year the non-profit New River Soil and Conservation District offers well water testing at a reduced rate.  They will test for e.Coli for $60, rather than the regular price of $200.  Watch the newspapers, or contact the NRSCD at https://www.newriverswcd.org/home.

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Who is responsible for testing well water?

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According to law, maintaining the quality of well water is the responsibility of the home owner.  The health department recommends testing for several chemicals, including pesticides.  What they don’t explain is that testing for pesticides is a complicated matter.  If you want to have water tested for any of the 16,000 pesticides that are currently in use, you must hire a chemical analysis company, and you have to tell them exactly which chemical to look for. Most analyses of this nature cost in the neighborhood of $200 per chemical.  In case of a lawsuit, it is prudent to hire a company that is approved by the Virginia Department of Health: chrome-extension:// efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.vdh.virginia.gov/content/ uploads/sites/126/2017/01/List-of-State-Approved-Water-Labs.pdf.

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How do I know what chemical to test for? How do I know what they are spraying?

Virginia has no requirement that a pesticide applicator tell you anything that they are doing.  If asked, most will assure you they are "safe."  We have no legal recourse, or right to know what is going into our waterways, our wells, and even our own bodies.  And remember, pesticides are seldom applied singly, but are usually a cocktail of different pesticides, adjuvants, and inert ingredients.  If the applicator happens to decide to tell you, there are several databases where you can look up the ingredients.  This is the EPA search engine: https://www.epa.gov/ingredients-used-pesticide-products/how- search-information-about-pesticide-ingredients-and-labels and this: https://www.agrian.com/labelcenter/results.cfm is a more user-friendly database.

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What about municipal drinking water?

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Drinking water comes under the auspices of the Health Department and VDACS, and all it needs to do is meet Federal guidelines determined by the EPA (https://www.epa.gov/wqc/national-recommended-water-quality- criteria-human-health-criteria-table). There are no federal standards for pesticides in our drinking water.

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What about the EPA?  Don’t they protect us?

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The EPA Office of Pesticide Programs has broad authority to review information and data to determine whether a pesticide product may be registered for a particular use.  It evaluates new pesticides for safety and effectiveness.  It also works with the manufacturers to approve pesticide labels, which have the force of law in Virginia.

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So, how does the EPA decide which chemicals to approve?

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Science is a slow and expensive process.  There are far too many pesticides for the government to test, so it just sets guidelines for the manufacturers to test their own products.  In other words, the actual testing is done by the company that stands to profit from the chemical!

Plus: All scientific testing is done on single chemicals.  However, pesticides usually have inert ingredients such as emulsifiers, solvents, propellants
or dyes.  The word ‘inert’ does not mean non-toxic.  In addition, pesticides are usually applied in cocktails: several products may be combined, and a selection of recommended adjuvants is added. Adjuvants are products such as surfactants that make the pesticides adhere better to plant tissue and soil. (One must ask whether the adjuvants make the pesticides adhere better to the tissue deep inside our lungs as well.) And this is not to mention any degradates, the chemicals formed when the pesticides break down in the soil.  Who tests these?  The consequences of these combinations in the human body are completely unknown.

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The regulatory branch of the EPA is very interested in knowing about the possible misuse of pesticides and other environmental violations, however. The National Response Center maintains a hotline (1-800-424-8802), and there is a website where you can fill out a form (https://echo.epa.gov/report- environmental-violations) to report possible violations. We encourage you to use these resources.

 

What does the state of Virginia do to protect us?  What does the DEQ do?

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The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality is responsible for administering laws and regulations related to water quality and land protection in the Commonwealth through six regional offices across the state.  It issues permits, conducts monitoring and inspections, and enforces federal guidelines.  It partners closely with the Army Corps of Engineers.  In Virginia a VPW (Virginia Water Protection) Permit must be obtained from the DEQ before disturbing a stream.  If the stream is disturbed, mitigation and compensation is required and heavily regulated (https://www.deq. virginia.gov/water/wetlands-streams).

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The DEQ’s Water Quality Assessment Program for Grayson and Carrol Counties is run from Abingdon.  Our Southwest Regional Office is staffed by three people and can have up to 28 ambient watershed stations per year.  Data is collected across an area and analyzed, and if an area doesn’t meet standards it goes on a schedule for restoration.  Every even numbered year the DEQ releases an Integrated Report.  Its goal is to detect changes in values, not whether the values are high or low.  There are 410 stations across Virginia monitoring our surface and ground water.  Twelve parameters are analyzed, but there is no testing for pesticides.

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So who actually oversees pesticide use in Virginia?

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The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, or VDACS.  Their mandate is to “promote agriculture, provide consumer protection, and encourage environmental stewardship.”  Note that they say ‘encourage’ not ‘enforce.’

The Virginia Pesticide Control Act sets minimum requirements for licensing and enforcement.  The Office of Pesticide Services tests and certifies applicators, registers pesticide products, and licenses pesticide businesses.

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How does VDACS handle infractions?

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VDACS has one inspector for the seventeen counties of Southwest Virginia.  If he should manage to come to your place for an inspection in time to see the infraction, VDACS is required to follow the procedures set forth in Virginia’s Administrative Process Act, which generally requires that the offender be given time to correct the problem and a second inspection.  Civil penalties are possible, and VDACS provides a searchable database of infractions: https://pesticidesearch.vdacs.virginia.gov/.  However, as you can see if you search on one of the bad players in our area, the penalties are not even a slap on the wrist to a multi-million dollar company.

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If you want to raise bees on your property, VDACS has a Voluntary Plan to Mitigate the Risk of Pesticides to Managed Pollinators in which it sets forth best practices for farmers that happen to be near bee hives.  That’s right, voluntary, as in non-enforceable.

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What is the most practical way for me to monitor my stream?

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One of the best overall pictures of stream health may be monitoring the benthic macroinvertebrates, small aquatic animals and the aquatic larval stages of insects that live in the mud and rocks of the stream.   There are certain requirements for monitoring a stream in this way

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The Izaak Walton League of America (https://www.iwla.org/SOS) offers a variety of opportunities to monitor your local waterways.  Save Our Streams is a program where you can become certified to collect and identify macroinvertebrates to calculate a stream health score.  Once approved, this data is sent to VA DEQ to be used at the state level.  IWLA has over 400 SOS volunteers across VA, and more around the country.  Salt Watch is a program that aims to test streams, lakes, and ponds for road salt pollution.  Road salt is bad for wildlife and can threaten the safety of our drinking water. You can request free chloride test kits year-round at www.SaltWatch.org.  All of IWLA’s monitoring data is available to view on the Clean Water Hub.  Two of our associates have become water monitors in Grayson County.  Streams must meet a set of requirements and be monitored at least twice a year to fully be considered.

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If you have questions or concerns about your stream or live near a large industrial farm in Grayson County, you can reach out to us for more information at info@preservegrayson..com.  We also encourage you to explore the Virginia Save Our Streams website and consider becoming a water monitor.  VASOS assists with purchasing minimal equipment after certification.

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The DEQ has a program where citizens can take an active part in water testing, apply for grants to pay for training and equipment,and share their data: https://www.deq.virginia.gov/water/water-quality/monitoring/citizen- monitoring.

New River Land Conservancy offers a Water Watchers Program. Every year they train and certify volunteers throughout the watershed to observe, collect, record, and submit water quality data. Since it is not grant funded, however, the person receiving the training must pay for it or find a sponsor, and they must commit to making monthly measurements throughout
the year. The data is shared with government agencies, and is publicly available at newriverwaterquality.org.

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