Minnesota: State Thirsts for Cure to Water Woes

In this land of 10,000 lakes and sky blue waters, agricultural chemicals are getting into drinking water.

Farmers and townspeople who drink from the affected wells, and even chemical companies that make the compounds, are deeply aware of the issue. The degree of danger and what should be done are matters of dispute.

“It’s like a dual sword,” said Tom Klaseus, a Minnesota environmental health official. “They have to use chemicals to improve their crop production and they have to drink the water.”

The contamination varies from less than 1 part per billion to 41 parts per billion, he said. State health officials issue advisories when the level exceeds 17 ppb.

Thirty-five percent of all wells tested in agricultural areas of the state contained the weed killer atrazine, which has been in common use for a quarter of a century, Klaseus said.

Residents in half a dozen homes and two businesses in Lansing were shocked last March 4 when a letter from the state warned them not to drink their water.

Risks Unknown

“Anytime you have water problems, you worry,” said Evelyn Kiefer, postmaster for the community of 250 people. A shallow well at the post office is contaminated with several herbicides, officials said.

“Your water well has been sampled and found to contain organic contaminants,” the letter said. “The concentration of these contaminants is high enough to cause us to be concerned about the long-term ingestion of this water.”

Larry Gust of the state Health Department said officials do not know the long-term health risks of pesticide and herbicide contamination.

“There is no immediate health threat if you drink this water for several days or a week,” he told residents of Lansing. “We don’t know the risk of multiple contaminants. We’re not concerned about multiple contaminants in the short term. Our concern is for long-term exposures.

“We don’t have the kind of data that is good enough so we can be confident of the long-term exposure,” he said.

Lansing’s water contamination results from some kind of spill rather than from normal farming practices, said David Dally, state agriculture department pesticide specialist.

“It’s a hot spot,” Dally said. “I doubt it’s the only one in the state.”

On March 26, about 150 townspeople and farmers jammed into the Lansing Methodist Church hall to hear Dally and eight other state officials explain the problem.

“We don’t drink the water,” said Lynn Allas, who helps her son operate a gift shop and corner grocery. “But it tastes OK. It tastes better than the water we get in the bottles.”

State officials are paying for delivery of bottled water three times a week to residents whose wells are contaminated. Thirteen other wells sampled in the town contained low levels of atrazine but not enough to issue an advisory.

Betty Haustein sparked the investigation in Lansing. Last fall, after agreeing to provide day care for her granddaughter, she obtained a routine test of her well.

The test showed high levels of the nitrates found in fertilizers. State officials who retested the well found pesticides also and told her not to use the water.

“I’ve been hauling water since November,” Haustein said. “It’s been a long winter. I didn’t get concerned until I wanted to take care of my granddaughter. Grandmothers are protective, you know.”

Her neighbors include a grain elevator and distributor of farm chemicals. Two documented liquid fertilizer spills occurred in the last 10 years at the elevator, most recently in 1984, state agriculture officials said.

Doug Eckhoff, manager of the Huntting Inc. elevator, said a cement pad and dike system to contain the farm chemicals were installed in the spring of 1985.

‘We’re Concerned’

“We’re concerned about the water problem,” Eckhoff said. “Our kids drink the water like everybody else. We’d like to get to the bottom of this.”

Eckhoff said the elevator has supplied bottled water for its customers and employees.

The well at the elevator is a deep one sunk into the limestone rock of the Jordan aquifer. Most other wells in the town are shallow: 20 to 30 feet deep in sand.

One test of the deep well showed it had high levels of two herbicides, but a second test showed it to be clean.

Limited tests nationwide have confirmed 23 different pesticides in ground water in 24 states, with the most in Massachusetts, New York, Iowa, California and Maryland. The largest numbers have been found in the states where the most testing has been done, indicating that the problem may be widespread.

“The bottom line is (that) right now we can’t characterize the extent of the problem,” said Stuart Cohen, a former Environmental Protection Agency official who is now working for a private company.

Of 45,000 wells sampled across the nation, a little more than 11,500 wells have some detectable levels of pesticides. About half of those, 5,500, have pesticide residues above levels considered acceptable.

Those wells are a tiny percentage of 13 million wells nationwide.

Besides pesticide pollution, nitrate contamination of underground water is causing concern in farming areas.

“Nitrate contamination of rural water supply is an issue in some part of every state,” said Jim Leonard, president of Conklin Co., a Minnesota fertilizer company.

Conklin is selling an additive to help liquid nitrogen fertilizers stay longer in the root zone, deterring their leaching into the soil or evaporating.

Using Less Fertilizer

Leonard said the product will let farmers use less fertilizer. But he said chemical company dealers are prohibited by law from encouraging farmers to use less of a chemical than the amount stated on the product label.

“We’d like to say something different, but we can’t,” he said.

Dally confirmed that chemical dealers are prohibited by law from suggesting lower application levels, although farmers may do what they please.

“Recommended levels are made because tests show that’s the way it works best,” Dally said.

Dwight Ault, who farms 400 acres and raises hogs and sheep on his southern Minnesota farm, said farmers are starting to cut back on the use of chemicals to save money and to protect their water.

“People realize we are vulnerable,” he said. “We’re putting on a lot of ag chemicals.”

Link to Cancer Cited

There are some areas where the problem is especially acute. For example, Dennis Weisenburger, a University of Nebraska pathologist, reported in March that ground-water contamination by nitrogen fertilizer in eastern Nebraska has been linked statistically to an unusually high number of cancers of the lymph system. Scientists do not know the cause, but they know that cancer is correlated with areas that have the most nitrate-tainted wells.

A pilot study in California, Minnesota and Mississippi will be expanded into a national survey that will look for 70 to 150 pesticides and nitrates in all the states.

Eventually, it will probably cost $30 million to map the nation for ground-water vulnerability, which would yield enough information for states to limit pesticide use in vulnerable areas.

In Iowa, pollution of municipal and private water supplies is a problem officials have recognized for more than a decade. The Iowa Legislature is considering a bill to tax chemical companies to pay for a cleanup.

Tainted Municipal Wells

Rick Kelley of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources said tests on 550 municipal wells last year showed that 39% contained one or more agricultural pesticides. More wells are being tested this year.

“It seems to show up in all soil types,” he said. The highest contamination--44%--was in wells in towns along rivers and streams.

“Everything we have looked for suggests the chemicals have built up in the soils,” he said. “Large quantities of these compounds are in the soil.”

Some chemical compounds deteriorate quickly when exposed to sunlight, oxygen and bacteria. Others take longer to lose their potency.

Scientists have recently learned that compounds fail to break down once the chemicals seep deep into the soil and join water tables, Kelley said. Measurements of breakdown rates made in laboratories and in open air do not apply.

“The half-life of pesticides becomes meaningless once in the soil,” Kelley said.

Leonard said the movement of water through soil, through aquifers or in runoff, is difficult to analyze.

State hydrologist Sandra Forrest of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency said shallow wells are the first affected by pesticide contamination but deep wells are not immune.

In southern Minnesota, porous rock lies below the surface. “If the contamination gets in the fractured limestone, it travels faster,” Forrest told Lansing residents.

Some health officials suspect that farm chemicals may increase cancer rates, affect the nervous system and reduce the body’s ability to fight disease.

But Kelley said scientists have been unable to prove cause and effect.

As he put it, “If, in 30 to 40 years, we prove cause and effect, then we will have an entire population exposed to chemicals.”