Long term sites
This page is about locations in which landowners, who are not necessarily pesticide users, become confidential cooperators who allow Cornell personnel to collect water samples annually to be tested for pesticide residues. Most samples are from the landowners’ drinking water wells, though other kinds of wells and occasionally water table ponds are used. We do not install temporary wells at these sites.
The cooperators receive the full detail data about test results on their samples, annually. DEC receives an anonymized version of all data with locations highly blurred so that there is effectively no chance of discovering who or where the cooperators are (unless the cooperator announces their participation, and one has).
Recruiting, then first sampling began in early 2023. The quota for this type of sites was originally 24. As of mid August 2023 we have 28 agreed of whic 21 have been sampled. We found it difficult to obtain this type of cooperators in presumed high vulnerability settings, thus we are accepting more lower presumed vulnerability sites and continuing to add sites in search of higher and medium vulnerability ones. The main beneficiaries of this work will be the individuals having their water tested for free, in contrast to the categorical sites where their industries are probably the greater beneficiaries.
1. Objectives and priority
New York State wishes to know the concentrations of pesticides in groundwater off the property of pesticide users, that manage to reach drinking water wells. It is inevitable, and toxicologically and legally OK, for a tiny proportion of pesticides to spread downgradient from a usage area. Drinking water criteria are key in interpreting these data because of where the samples are taken.
This is the second priority of the 2021-2025 project, representing around 15% of the samples taken.
2. Design, approach, recruiting
We initially hped to re-recruit prior participants in earlier projects in Cayuga, Cortland, and Orange counties especially. That did not yield anywhere near the target 24, and paricularly the repeat volunteers included almost no higher presumed leaching vulnerability sites. To diversify more geographically (including areas with no categorical sites), we branched northward along Lake Ontario into Jefferson and St. Lawrence Counties, gaining several quickly. In summer 2023 we switched to recruiting small businesses more than households, approaching arboretums, outdoor zoos, newly-legal cannabis farms, and hops farms. The target count of 24 does not let any business type or geographic area be well represented, thus we are simply striving for variety, with a bias toward vibrant areas for small businesses (notably cannabis and hops). We can switch to different recruits in later years based on initial results.
As of August 2023, this type of site draws from 13 counties (Figure 1) and has 29 willing recruits (Table 1). Many are in glacial till terrain which dominates the upstate New York landscape.
| Attribute | Value | Count |
|---|---|---|
| Presumed vulnerability | ||
| High (glacial outwash, alluvium, lake sand) | 6 | |
| Medium (glacial kame, mixed) | 3 | |
| Low (glacial till, muck) | 20 | |
| Ecoregion | ||
| Allegheny Plateau | 4 | |
| Great Lakes Lowland | 20 | |
| Ridge and Valley | 3 | |
| Northeastern Highlands | 1 | |
| Coastal (Hudson) | 1 | |
| County | ||
| Jefferson | 9 | |
| Cayuga | 5 | |
| Orange | 3 | |
| Cortland | 2 | |
| Onondaga | 2 | |
| St. Lawrence | 1 | |
| Tompkins | 1 | |
| Schoharie | 1 | |
| Ontario | 1 | |
| Dutchess | 1 | |
| Broome | 1 | |
| Oswego | 1 | |
| Saratoga | 1 |
3. Sampling
These sites generally have their own wells. Thus we generally sample from portable, irrigation, or washing taps, once per year. As with categoricals, groundwater fed ponds are eligible sampling sites as long as we can avoid periods of runoff entry to the ponds. We indclude some long-popular public springs that many use for drinking water.
We have not found travel-efficient sampling routes for these sites as of mid 2023.
The season of sampling these sites is much less important than it is for categorical sites, because of the greater distance of these from pesticide use areas. Concentrations farther downgradient from pesticide use areas should average out over time. In our seasonal sampling of sites in earlier work, we did not find notable time variability. (TODO: needs confirmation, data from repeat sites are in one PDF available online)
4. Results and interpretations
No long term site samples have been tested for pesticides as of mid 2023 thus no results or interpretations are available. We test the earliest long term site samples for cations and anions at Cornell in summer 2023.
Last updated: 2023-08-14, sp17 AT cornell.edu.