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THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2022
New site shares state fi ndings on pesticides
Pollution often diffi cult to trace
By CASSANDRA PROFITA
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Fruit grower Brian Nakamura remembers when the state
started pesticide testing in the streams near his orchards more
than 22 years ago.
He can point to exactly what sparked him and fellow grow-
ers to launch a voluntary partnership that dramatically reduced
pesticide pollution in the Hood River b asin.
“This is what triggered it,” he said, pulling out a photocopy
of a 2001 newspaper clipping from The Oregonian.
“Pesticides pollute the Hood River for second straight
year,” the headline reads.
To protect dwindling salmon and steelhead populations,
Oregon environmental regulators had started testing the Hood
River b asin for toxic pesticides that can harm fi sh. And they
found concerning levels of azinphos-methyl and chlorpyrifos
— two commonly used orchard sprays at the time.
The results made for a startling headline.
“That article kind of got everyone’s attention,” Nakamura
said. “It was a surprise to everybody because the waterways
had never been tested before at this level. My reaction at the
time was we needed to do something.”
The growers’ response to the test results — and the implied
threat of lawsuits or regulation that came along with them —
gave birth to a whole new approach to reducing pesticide pol-
lution in Oregon known as the Pesticide Stewardship Partner-
ship program.
The program has been testing streams across the state and
recently shared its results on a website that allows the public
to see exactly which pesticides are polluting Oregon streams at
testing locations in a dozen diff erent watersheds.
Regulators say the results reveal strengths and weaknesses
in the state’s voluntary pesticide pollution reduction program,
as well as a snapshot of the prevalence of pesticide pollution in
state waterways.
“It’s kind of everywhere — that’s what the data is show-
ing,” Oregon Department of Agriculture pesticide stewardship
specialist Kathryn Rifenburg said. “We don’t just sample agri-
cultural areas. We sample in urban areas. W e sample in com-
mercial areas. We try to capture a wide variety of land uses.”
Rifenburg said she’s hoping the new data viewer website
will lead more people and companies to reduce their pesticide
use as the data itself has already done over the years.
Some argue the voluntary testing program has been more
successful in reducing pesticide pollution than the regulations
that would otherwise be needed to protect clean water and limit
toxic chemical use.
Pesticide stewardship partnerships across the state have
spurred farmers to switch to less toxic chemicals, change the
way pesticides are applied and test alternative pest manage-
ment options. Advocates say in many cases voluntary action
has reduced pesticide pollution faster than rules and regulations.
But the program has limited funding and can only aff ord to
test for pesticides in a fraction of the state’s watersheds. Critics
say it could be more eff ective if the state returned to the system
of pesticide-use reporting that it abandoned years ago, and they
argue some of the most toxic pesticides still need better regula-
tions or outright bans.
‘IT’S IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER
THAT PESTICIDES CAN HAVE
A NEGATIVE IMPACT ON
AQUATIC COMMUNITIES AND
HUMAN HEALTH AT CERTAIN
CONCENTRATIONS.’
David Gruen | program manager for the
Oregon Department of Environmental Quality
Lisa Arkin, the executive director of the environmental
group Beyond Toxics, said the options for controlling pesticide
pollution are fl awed and limited, and that’s why data from the
voluntary stewardship program is so valuable.
“We have to start with good data,” she said. “Knowledge
is power. The more the public knows, the better they will be
in terms of assessing the harm or safety of pesticides in our
waters.”
Reveals chemicals
The Pesticide Stewardship Partnership data viewer reveals
about 90 chemicals polluting streams in a dozen watersheds
across the state over the last two decades — with levels rang-
ing from very low to potentially harmful.
Some pollutants are more familiar than others — the bug
spray ingredient DEET, for example, shows up at low levels
and may be linked to bug-sprayed people swimming in the
river.
One of the most commonly found pesticides is glyphosate, a
widely used weed-killer in agriculture, forestry and road main-
tenance as well as in home and garden products like Roundup.
The second most prevalent pollutant is diuron, a toxic her-
bicide the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently pro-
posed restricting because it carries cancer risks for people in
addition to harming fi sh and wildlife.
In all, the pesticide stewardship program tests waterways
for about 130 diff erent chemicals. The data viewer site details
how often those chemicals have been found, where they were
detected and at what levels. Bar charts indicate which pes-
ticides have been found at levels harmful to fi sh and other
aquatic life.
David Gruen, program manager for the Oregon Department
of Environmental Quality, said the data could be helpful to
people choosing where they want to go swimming or fi shing.
“It’s important to remember that pesticides can have a neg-
ative impact on aquatic communities and human health at cer-
tain concentrations,” Gruen said.
The EPA sets benchmarks for pesticide levels that can be
harmful to fi sh and wildlife, but many pesticides don’t have
benchmarks. So, the danger posed by many pesticides in the
database is unclear.
The site notes how much surrounding land is used for agri-
culture, forestry or urban development, which can off er some
clues as to where certain chemicals are coming from.
But pesticides are notoriously diffi cult to trace because they
can come from so many diff erent places, and that can make
it diffi cult to enforce standards set by the Clean Water Act.
They can come from agricultural or residential weed and pest
sprays, disinfectants that are designed to kill bacteria and even
pet medications that kill fl eas.
“It’s not coming from a single pipe,” Gruen said. “We use
pesticides in many diff erent sectors of the economy. Many
people think of agriculture. But pesticides are also used in a
number of other areas — in our home, in and around busi-
Cassandra Profi ta/Oregon Public Broadcasting
Fruit growers in the Hood River Valley organized the fi rst pesticide stewardship partnership to reduce pollution after stream
testing revealed harmful pesticides in the creeks surrounding their orchards.
TO PROTECT DWINDLING
SALMON AND STEELHEAD
POPULATIONS, OREGON
ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATORS
HAD STARTED TESTING THE
HOOD RIVER B ASIN FOR
TOXIC PESTICIDES THAT
CAN HARM FISH. AND THEY
FOUND CONCERNING LEVELS
OF AZINPHOS-METHYL AND
CHLORPYRIFOS — TWO
COMMONLY USED ORCHARD
SPRAYS AT THE TIME.
nesses, around roadways. Pesticide use is not just tied to
agriculture.”
Gruen said the Department of Environmental Quality
and the Oregon Department of Agriculture create part-
nerships for voluntary pesticide pollution reduction in
places where it’s likely pesticides are “not staying on tar-
get and are being transported into Oregon waters.”
The partners often include local agricultural groups,
soil and water conservation districts and the Oregon
State University Extension Service. They test the water
and send the samples to the Department of Environmen-
tal Quality for analysis, Gruen said, and the results often
spur people into action — just like they did in Hood
River.
In Eastern Oregon’s Walla Walla watershed, for
example, water sampling in 2010 and 2011 showed lev-
els of the weed-killer diuron that were 19 times higher
than the benchmark for harming fi sh and other aquatic
life.
Gruen said the local irrigation district and watershed
council worked with pea and wheat growers to control
weeds with machines and switch to more targeted spray-
ing of a less toxic herbicide. Since then, the diuron detec-
tions have declined signifi cantly and haven’t exceeded
the aquatic life benchmark in the last decade.
Getting ahead of restrictions
When the fi rst pesticide partnership was created in
Hood River, Nakamura said, fruit growers were hoping
to avoid lawsuits and more pesticide regulations.
There had already been Endangered Species Act law-
suits fi led to restrict or eliminate pesticide use in Wash-
ington state because of their impacts on threatened and
endangered salmon and steelhead. Hundreds of fruit
growers in the Hood River Valley recognized that the
Department of Environmental Quality results showing
pesticide pollution in their watershed could mean more
litigation.
More pesticide detections above aquatic health
benchmarks would trigger Clean Water Act regulations,
too, which would restrict the chemicals growers can use
to control pests.
“In the food industry, it became apparent that there
was going to be more restrictions on use of those chem-
icals because they aff ected salmon species all over the
West Coast,” Nakamura said. “Obviously, the worst case
would be to eliminate the use of it completely.”
As part of a fruit growers association with hundreds
of members, Nakamura helped build a handbook about
how to avoid spilling pesticides into streams and how to
spray so chemicals don’t drift into public spaces or run
off into waterways.
“Fortunately for the whole organization, everyone
got on board,” he said. “Part of the impetus to get the
whole program going so that we can show that, you
know, we’re doing a better job.”
The Hood River Soil and Water Conservation District
got involved in educating growers about pesticide use
and started planting stream buff ers to keep chemicals out
of fi sh-bearing waterways.
Nakamura said they were “the guinea pigs” testing
out a new, voluntary system of reducing pesticide pollu-
tion in Oregon.
And it worked.
Within a couple of years, the levels of the most toxic
pesticides in Hood River b asin streams were steadily
decreasing.
“Overall, they just kept going down,” he said. “It’s
a success story. I was pretty proud that it was able to be
expanded.”