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FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September
17, 2001 Contact:
Art Starry, Environmental Health Director, 360-786-5456 TESTING
SHOWS GREATLY REDUCED GROUNDWATER CONTAMINATION FROM PESTICIDES OLYMPIA – Public drinking water supplies were found to be free of
pesticide contamination as a result of testing done on lake and groundwater in
the Yelm highway area of Thurston County.
Other area wells, which were found to have contamination in earlier
tests, showed declining levels. The
tests were part of a continuing study of pesticide contamination, which was
done by the Thurston County, the City of Olympia, the State Department of
Ecology and the State Department of Health.
Tests conducted in the 1980s first showed environmental effects from
contamination of groundwater in the area southeast of Lake St. Clair and
southwest of Pattison Lake. In
1984, 14 wells over several square miles showed contamination from Ethylene
Dibromide (EDB), one of three different compounds detected. In 1989 testing showed 24 water wells along the Yelm highway
were affected and 17 exceeded levels for drinking water standards from the
Environmental Protection Agency. (The
agency outlawed use of EDB in 1979.) The affected homes were supplied with
water from other sources. The latest round of testing was done from December 1999 through July of
2001 by the Thurston County health department and the City of Olympia from more
than 40 private wells, public water supplies and the water and sediment from
the two lakes. The results show no
contamination of public drinking water supplies. Testing of waters and sediments at Lake St. Claire and
Pattison Lake showed no traces of the pesticides.
Repeat samplings in a City of Olympia monitoring well and a Department
of Natural Resources irrigation well showed no pesticide contamination.
Only three of six previously contaminated wells still showed
contaminants and one abandoned private well showed EDB above drinking water
standards. Thurston County Environmental Health Director Art Starry says, “This
is good news for the Yelm Highway area. The
testing shows no real spreading of the chemicals and a continued general
decline in the areas where the pesticides were found earlier.” Study officials estimate that the chemical concentrations may drop below
reporting limits by 2011. In the
meantime, Thurston County, the City of Olympia and the State Department of
Natural Resources will continue to monitor the area. |
