Facility Masters — Training for Educational Facility Professionals

Purpose: To test school drinking water for pesticide residues; data obtained will be used in risk assessments.

Background: Utilities serving schools and schools with wells fall under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) which requires that routine testing be performed for a number of chemical and biological contaminants. This required testing involves 23 pesticides for which EPA has established Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs). In groundwater and surface water, pesticide degradation compounds, called metabolites, are often more prevalent and are at much higher concentrations than the parent pesticide. However, EPA does not currently require testing for these metabolites – only for the parent pesticide. This monitoring effort is an attempt to collect data on the prevalence of over 100 pesticide residues (parent pesticide and degradation products) at ultra-low levels (parts-per-trillion). The data from this project will be used for risk assessments of these chemicals to specifically address the drinking water component for children during their developmental years.

What is Involved: PDP requests to collect a sample of your school’s water (three 1-liter glass bottles). The sample will be sent via Federal Express, overnight, to the laboratory for analysis. This is a one-time effort. Confidential analytical results will be provided to your school administration. It takes roughly 90 days to receive results due to the number of analytes and the low levels being tested.

Cost: PDP is responsible for all costs. A sampling kit, overnight shipping fees, and the pesticide analyses are all covered by PDP. PDP asks only that the school allow a sample to be collected and tested. This is an opportunity to obtain data on compounds potentially present in water; these data would otherwise likely be cost-prohibitive for the school to obtain.

Participation: Participation in this monitoring effort is voluntary. Many of the compounds tested in this project EPA has not established an MCL. The data collected will be published in the PDP Annual Summary but school names will kept confidential and will not be released. Each school will be identified only by the State, followed by an arbitrary number (e.g., VA 5501).

Information: For more information about the Pesticide Data Program see www.ams.usda.gov/pdp  or call (703) 330-2300.

U.S. Department of Agriculture

Monitoring Programs Office

8609 Sudley Road, Suite 206

Manassas, VA 20110
For more information about school IPM, go to http://schoolipm.tamu.edu