More pesticides in drinking water?

The Doctors for Environmental Protection (AefU), the Swiss Fishing Association (SFV) and the Vision Landwirtschaft association, on the other hand, demand the consistent implementation of the precautionary principle enshrined in law. Pesticides have no place in drinking water. Even today, one in five drinking water wells in Switzerland is contaminated with more pesticides than the tolerance level allows. In areas with intensive agriculture, this value is even exceeded in 70 percent of the drinking water wells examined. As a consequence, the Federal Council would have to set the Pesticide use in agriculture. But it does the opposite: Pesticides are to be permitted in water bodies in concentrations up to 10,300 times higher. This is what the draft revision of the Water Protection Ordinance proposes. But this poses an additional threat to our drinking water.

Precautionary principle means no pesticides in drinking water 

For drinking water, a tolerance value of 0.1 micrograms per liter (µg/l) applies today per individual pesticide. The sum of all pesticides present must not exceed a concentration of 0.5 µg/l. These limits originate from food legislation, where they were established in the 1980s. At that time, the herbicide atrazine in particular repeatedly contaminated drinking water. However, the political consensus at the time was that no pesticides should be present in drinking water. Against the resistance of the chemical industry the authorities had therefore set the above-mentioned tolerance values at the then technical detection limit "in the spirit of the precautionary principle". To ensure actual protection of drinking water, the value of 0.1 µg/l per pesticide was also adopted in the Water Protection Ordinance and for groundwater polluted by contaminated sites. This minimization obligation is intended to protect groundwater, river water and lake water as sources of drinking water.

First more pesticides from contaminated sites in groundwater

Now, however, the maximum values in the Water Protection Ordinance are suddenly to be determined according to so-called toxicological criteria, which will lead to higher limit values for most pesticides. In the case of contaminated sites, this is exactly what has already taken place: Under pressure from pesticide manufacturer Syngenta, among others, the Federal Office for the Environment finally buckled in 2013 and quietly threw the precautionary principle overboard. The pesticide limits for groundwater polluted by contaminated sites determine the need for remediation. These are now no longer based on the minimization principle, but are "risk-based", i.e. based on toxicological criteria derived. Exactly as the industry had demanded for decades. As a result, the limit values skyrocketed: Pesticides from contaminated sites are now allowed to pollute groundwater up to 40,000 times more. The SyngentaHerbicide atrazine has long since been banned. However, it is still found in landfills and under polluted factory sites of the now Chinese corporation. Atrazine is now allowed to occur in groundwater at concentrations 10,000 times higher than under the minimization requirement.

Now additional pesticides in our streams, rivers and lakes?

If the limit values are now also defined in the Water Protection Ordinance according to toxicological criteria, the limit values here would also increase massively in some cases. The presumably The herbicide glyphosate, for example, which promotes cancer and acts as an antibiotic at the same time, is likely to have a negative impact on our waters. Pollute 3,600 times more. At Propamocarb fungicide even a 10,300-fold pollution would be permissible. And this despite the fact that toxicological research is far from being able to assess all the effects of pesticides on humans, plants and animals. Again and again, substances such as the aforementioned atrazine had to be banned because their harmful effects on health were long misjudged. Knowledge of the so-called cocktail effects, i.e. the effects resulting from the interaction of different pesticides, is also completely inadequate. The revised ordinance does not even address pesticide cocktails, although studies show that they are devastating to aquatic ecology. The ordinance also continues to ignore the effects of pesticide degradation products.

Drinking water in danger

How can the tolerance values for pesticides in drinking water be complied with in the future if the limit values for ground, river and lake water - i.e. drinking water sources - are to be relaxed to such an extent? In the case of drinking water, too, precautionary health protection is in danger of being replaced by limit values based on incomplete/fragmentary/fragmentary knowledge. More pesticides in our drinking water would only be in the interest of the industry, but an additional risk for the population and a wrong signal to agriculture.

No games with health protection

The AefU, the SFV and Vision Landwirtschaft therefore vehemently oppose the weakening of water and health protection and reject this proposed revision of the Water Protection Ordinance. Instead, they demand that the tolerance values for pesticides be adapted to the now improved technical detection limit. This corresponds to a maximum permissible concentration of 0.01 µg/l for the individual pesticide. Consequently, this value must also apply to drinking water, with the sum of existing pesticides being adjusted to 0.05 µg/l. Particularly toxic pesticides should also be banned. As was the case back in the 1980s, the precautionary principle requires today: No pesticides in drinking water!

Text:

Physicians for Environmental Protection (AefU), www.aefu.ch

Swiss Fishing Association (SFV), www.sfv-fsp.ch

Vision Agriculture Association, www.visionlandwirtschaft.ch

Further information and documents of the AefU

More info/links from the editors:

Argentina protests against disease-causing pesticides (The Deutsche Welle)

"It's raining glyphosate in South America": Presentation on pesticide use and human health in Argentina, by. Dr. Medardo Avila Vazquez, presented by www.donausoja.org

Glyphosate and gene seeds (ARD) - How Bayer wants to change agriculture with Monsanto

Glyphosate/RoundUp: Terrible deformities are the result

Leuthard wants to increase glyphosate limit value 3600-fold