Off-site movement of pesticide-contaminated fill from agrichemical facilities during the 1993 flooding in Illinois

Abstract

Twenty retail agrichemical facilities were flooded. There was a concern that pesticide-contaminated road fill at these facilities had been transported into residential areas by the flooding. Forty fill and flood-related sediment samples were collected at six facilities. No significant accumulation of sediments was present at any of the six facilities. At five of the six facilities, it did not appear that road fill had been transported off-site. Pesticides were detected in sediment samples collected off-site adjacent to five of the facilities. Of the 21 samples collected off-site, atrazine (2-chloro-4-ethylamino-6-isopropylamino-1,3,5-triazide) and metolachlor (2-chloro-6′-ethyl- N -(2-methoxy-1-methylethyl)acet- o -toluidine) were detected in 86 and 81% of the samples, respectively. When compared with on-site concentrations, off-site pesticide concentrations were either at similar levels, or were as much as three orders of magnitude less. The interpretation of the pesticide data was difficult and often inconclusive, because there were no background data on the occurrence and distribution of pesticides at each site before flooding.