Researchers at the University of Iowa have found several pesticides often used on farms are showing up in surface water, urban trees and even household dust. The researchers say the results provide new insights into how pesticides travel through Iowa’s environment.
For example, the herbicide atrazine is mostly used for corn production, but it was detected it in 91% of water samples from streams and rivers in northeast Iowa and 96% of leaf samples collected in Iowa City.
Darrin Thompson, an environmental epidemiologist at the University of Iowa, said many of the pesticides in the study showed up as mixtures. “Understanding what those mixtures may mean for our health, we still have a lot of work to do,” he said, “but, you know, understanding that they’re there and understanding how we’re potentially exposed to them is an important step.”
Thompson said more research is needed to understand how people are affected. “It’s all kind of a gradual, systematic process of trying to understand what’s in the environment, what are we as Iowans potentially being exposed to, and then ultimately what does that mean for our health,” Thompson said.
The study was part of an environmental health research initiative, known as Iowa INSIGHT, which launched this summer.
