ABSTRACT:
Agricultural drainage wells, used in fields to remove subsurface drainage and sometimes surface runoff, inject water that can contain contaminants directly into the aquifer below. Monitoring of that water for NO3-N showed that 85% of the samples more than 10 mg/liter NO3-N. A survey of farm water supply wells in the vicinity of drainage wells indicated that NO3-N in injection water increased the NO3-N levels in the local aquifer. Pesticides were sometimes detected in injection water, but at levels less than 1 μg/liter for subsurface drainage; higher levels up to 80 μ/liter were detected when surface runoff was being injected. However, current pesticide water quality criteria were not exceeded.
Footnotes
J. L. Baker is a professor and R. S. Kanwar is an assistant professor of agricultural engineering, and T. A. Austin is a professor of civil engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011. Journal Paper No. J-11574 of the Iowa Agriculture and Home Economics Experiment Station, Ames, Project No. 2450. The authors acknowledge partial support for the study from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and thank the farm owners who allowed water samples to be taken from their wells.
- Copyright 1985 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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