If anyone is concerned about water safety, Farley Cole is. With two young children and a third on the way this fall, the strapping 30-year-old wants the water running from his kitchen tap to be safe from contaminants.

But as a corn and soybean farmer in Macoupin County in west central Illinois, Cole acknowledges his own livelihood causes potentially dangerous chemicals to show up in Otter Lake, the water source for his family's large farmhouse and the homes of 14,000 other people living nearby.

Back in 1992, he explains, atrazine levels in the lake soared above government safety regulations. Federal Environmental Protection Agency standards for the popular weed-killer allow three parts of the chemical for every billion parts of water, which comes to about five drops in three railroad boxcars of water. Tests showed Otter Lake contained several times that amount.

"It put the whole water district on notice," Cole says while sitting in his sprawling kitchen, where he can look out the window and survey some of the 600 acres he farms. "Every consumer had to be notified that we had violated federal safety standards.

"I was concerned about pesticides to begin with, because when you get them you take out the instructions and warnings about how to use them and you just keep unfolding and unfolding and unfolding," he says. "But when we started violating EPA standards I became really concerned about it because it could affect farming operations. The communities around here would have to get a new water source [if violations continued]. As a beginning young farmer, I didn't want to sit by idly."

The safety of pesticides like atrazine is under increasing scrutiny. DuPont Agricultural Products announced recently it will phase out its weed-killing cyanazine products following federal review. Atrazine is under similar review. Tests on rats already have shown that the chemical may cause cancer; if regulators find atrazine causes cancer at lower levels than previously thought, as some researchers suspect, they could ban it.

At the same time, many farmers are taking action to protect their water supplies. In Macoupin County, Cole and others formed a planning committee to find ways to reduce the level of chemicals seeping into Otter Lake. In Pike County, to the west, where in 1992 atrazine levels also exceeded federal safety standards, farmers have been working with EPA officials to develop farming options to reduce chemicals in Lake Pittsfield.

"I've got a family that drinks water from the tap," says Cole, reflecting a growing attitude among farmers. "So I've got to be concerned about the health aspects."

The scope of the problem

The east central Illinois city of Danville, a community of about 30,000 people, straddles some of the state's richest farmland. But, as in several Illinois cities, including Springfield and Decatur, Danville's tap water showed signs of elevated chemical pesticides this year.

A controversial study by the Washington-based Environmental Working Group found Danville tap water contained high levels of atrazine and cyanazine — the highest concentrations, in fact, of the 29 Midwestern cities it checked last spring. The group examined tap water in 10 states, including such Illinois Corn Belt neighbors as Iowa, Missouri, Indiana, Kansas and Ohio.

While the group's testing methods didn't match those required by the government, A.G. Taylor of the Illinois EPA says the high levels it found can't be disputed. Federal standards call for four samples to be taken each year to test atrazine levels in water sources; to comply, the results, when averaged, must not exceed 3 parts per billion. That means a single sample showing atrazine levels at 12 parts per billion would be OK if the three other samples for the year showed a level of zero, says Taylor, who advises the EPA on agricultural issues. But a sample of Danville water earlier this year showed an atrazine level of 18 parts per billion, according to the study. Even if that sample were averaged with three others that showed no trace of atrazine, it still would exceed federal standards, Taylor acknowledges.

Critics may grumble over methods and interpretation of

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water contamination data, says Dave White, principal research specialist at the Farm Resource Management Lab run by the University of Illinois' Department of Agriculture and Consumer Economics. But as long as chemicals are used on crops, he says, they're probably going to show up to some degree in drinking water.

"If it's going to be considered allowable to use chemicals, we're probably going to be able to measure some level of chemicals in the environment," White says. "To think we're not going to have that kind of effect is Pollyannaish."

For one thing. White explains, it is prohibitively expensive for cities' water filtration systems to remove all traces of pesticides. "The technologies are costly to remove low levels of chemicals," he says. "The costs rise exponentially as you approach zero. The first 10 percent is pretty expensive when compared to the last 10 percent because, at that point, contaminants are much more dispersed."

For another thing, advancing technology makes finding chemicals easier. "We're talking about very small levels that can now be detected in the water supply," says Don Keefer, a scientist at the Illinois State Geological Survey. "We keep developing more and more sophisticated tests for finding things in the water, so no matter how small the amounts are, they're going to show up."

Chemicals move from crops into water supplies in two ways, Keefer explains. As rainwater seeps into the ground, it carries pesticides on the surface down into groundwater. Or the pesticides attach to soil particles and are carried as the soil moves into surface water through erosion.

"The question we battle is what level is a real risk to health," White says. "There's no sense in removing the last molecule if that last molecule won't hurt us."

Safety questions

Environmental safety has been pondered since people began farming, historians say. In some ways, it seems pesticides have come a long way: Records indicate Sumerians used sulfur to control insects in crops as far back as 2500 B.C. In the United States, farmers used arsenic dust and nicotine as insecticides during the early part of this century.

This practice led to the country's first pesticide regulations — the Federal Insecticide Act of 1910, which called for standards on the amount and type of chemicals farmers can apply to their fields, says John Hawkins of the Illinois Farm Bureau. The federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act of 1947, which replaced the 1910 law, covers additional pest control materials.

'There is no sense in removing that last molecule if that last molecule won't hurt us'

Widespread use of pesticides began during World War II, when DDT was applied directly to humans and their clothing to control body lice and louse-borne typhus. When the war ended, farmers were thrilled to find that DDT killed insects without damaging crops. "What a blessing," says White, who grew up on a farm in Piatt County. "My father didn't have to work so hard. It allowed farmers to care for more land with less work."

Once the chemical's environmental persistence and adverse health effects became known, though, both public and scientific opinions on pesticides were changed forever. DDT was banned in the 1970s, but "improved" pesticides quickly took its place. "Obviously, there was a market for this kind of stuff," says White. "Madison Avenue saw there was an opportunity to build a better mousetrap, and that people would buy it." Today, Illinois farmers apply 50 million pounds of pesticides, says Dave Pike, an agronomist with the University of Illinois.

Interest in water safety came to a head in 1972, when Congress passed the Clean Water Act. It was intended to curb pollution in the nation's rivers, lakes and bays. But it wasn't until 1986, under the Safe Drinking Water Act, that the U.S. EPA was required to set drinking water standards for many pesticides. The move marked the beginning of a national focus on the public health threat of pesticides in drinking water. The law requires that water supplies be tested for contaminants, and that disinfection or filtration equipment be installed to remove any that are found.

National drinking water standards have been in effect since then for 80 potential contaminants, including many pesticides, says Beth Hall of the EPA's Office of Groundwater and Drinking Water. An additional 25 contaminants were supposed to be added to this list every three years, she says, but regulators are lagging so far behind that not one has been added.

This seemingly lackadaisical approach doesn't bother Al Wehrmann, a scientist with the Illinois State Water Survey. He says low levels of chemicals in water shouldn't scare people. "I think we're in pretty good shape," he says, adding that he drinks water from his tap without thinking twice about it.

But White, of the U of I's farm lab, is more cautious. He feels safe drinking the tap water in his own home because his community has deep groundwater levels, which he says are likely safe from pesticide contamination. "But the people most at risk would be those drinking surface water and shallow groundwater," he says. "Farmers and farm communities probably ought to pay more attention to the research that's being done because it's their own families that could be affected."

Though, he allows, farmers must use pesticides to stay in business. "Barring some kind of medical catastrophe, I don't think it is likely that pesticides will go out of use," he says. "That doesn't mean I like what I see. But to try to turn around and tell a farmer, 'You've got to walk your rows of beans and corn' — that would be a real battle."

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Macoupin County farmer Farley Cole, reflected in his truck mirror, surveys land that will become a man-made lake on his property. The land will be able to catch runoff water from the 600 acres of corn and beans he farms, as well as water coming from his neighbors' fields, and allow chemicals to settle out.

Philip Bradshaw agrees. He farms about 800 acres south of Griggsville near the Illinois River in Pike County. "I'd have to hire more than 20 people ... to walk my fields [to pull weeds] as an alternative to using pesticides. A lot of you people in the city would have to come back on the farm to pull weeds."

The expense of hiring several extra hands would put many farmers out of business, he says. Another alternative is to let yields drop to 30 to 40 bushels of corn an acre, which he estimates would leave about one-third of the world starving and send food prices soaring in the United States. "Instead of people with moderate income spending the 11 or 12 percent of disposable income on food," Bradshaw says, "it would be a lot higher."

Grass-roots solutions

Bradshaw, like fellow farmer Farley Cole, believes chemical pesticides are here to stay. But that doesn't mean they are content to sit and watch these contaminants invade their families' drinking water. Both men have been active in trying to change their communities' agricultural practices for the sake of water quality.

In Pike County, Bradshaw says, he and others who farm in the Lake Pittsfield watershed have stopped using atrazine on their corn and switched to a more expensive herbicide. "It winds up costing an extra $15 to $20 an acre, and I've got 300 acres of corn," he says. "As close a margin as most family farmers operate on, that's a big chunk. And we're the ones who pay for it; it comes right out of our lifestyle."

It's worth the price, though. "My daughter, son-in-law and grandkids live here and drink the water from Lake Pittsfield," he says. "If it's even a hint of a health risk to have elevated atrazine levels, the economic benefit is not worth it."

Cole and his colleagues in Macoupin County haven't gone as far as swearing off atrazine. But they've turned to farming

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Farley Cole walks across a dried settling pond on his farm. The pond is designed to filter chemicals out of water that runs from the fields.

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Farley Cole looks over the area by the spillway drop box located next to the settling pond. The drop box is used to slow the water that comes from the settling pond and other areas where water is channeled. This is an important function in the channeling process because it slows the water flow that allows the potential foreign particles in the water to settle at the bottom, sending cleaner water into Otter Lake. The lake is the source of local drinking water.

techniques that have helped reduce Otter Lake's atrazine levels. Filter strips, for instance, are wide swaths of field that farmers leave fallow between their crops and water sources. As rain or irrigation water passes through pesticide-treated fields, carrying topsoil, it must pass through these filter strips before moving into streams and lakes. During this detour, some of the eroded soil — and the chemicals it carries — is left behind in the grassy strips.

Similarly, filter ponds can be built so water settles into low-lying areas before moving into streams and lakes. While it settles, soil and chemicals can sink to the bottom before the water continues its journey through streams, lakes, water filtration systems and people's faucets.

Perhaps most controversial to farmers, says Cole, is the concept of no-till farming, in which fields are not plowed. This practice, which Bradshaw and others in Pike County use, leaves topsoil undisturbed. It discourages erosion, in which pesticide-laced soil moves off fields into drainage ditches and water sources.

Cole points to $3,500 federal grants to encourage his neighbors to try these methods. U.S. Rep. Dick Durbin's office helped secure these grants. But staffers there caution that if Republican-backed cuts to federal EPA and Department of Agriculture budgets go through, these grants would be jeopardized.

Cole says that would be a shame. "Everything on a farm is economically driven," he says. "Farmers won't change just for the environment because they're following a tight bottom line. But we found we could access some financial incentives through these grants. Basically we're using them to do fanning behavioral pattern modification."

Many farmers resisted these changes initially. Cole says. But about 30 of the 100 farmers in his watershed have come on board to some extent. He'd like to see 75 percent participation in the voluntary program.

This farmer-to-farmer approach is a good way to get individual communities to change possibly destructive habits, White says. And unless government regulators further restrict pesticides like atrazine in drinking water, it may be the only way Farley Cole can ensure safer water running into his family's kitchen.

"I think it's time farmers make some move to correct the error of our ways," he says. "We can't just cling to traditional practices and ignore what we're doing to the land and water."

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Farley Cole tends nearly 75 head of cattle on approximately 600 acres of land in Girard, III.

Sustaining the land

Some analysts worry that Americans are becoming detached from the source of meat and grain they buy and eat, and disinterested in the environmental effects of raising livestock and tilling the soil — an attitude that could ultimately jeopardize food production.

There's even a movement to remind people that agriculture and the environment are inextricably linked. The term "sustainable agriculture" covers a range of environmentally sound yet profitable fanning practices.

During the past several weeks, the Illinois Stewardship Alliance and the state's Department of Agriculture each have invited the public to tour central Illinois farms that practice sustainable methods.

These can include no-till farming, which cuts down on soil erosion, and efforts to control pests without the use of chemicals. Other options include using manure and sewage sludge to fertilize fields and rotating legumes into the cropping sequence to add nutrients to the soil.

Sustainable Agriculture in the American Midwest, edited by Gregory Mclsaac and William R. Edwards, was published last year by the University of Illinois Press. Mclsaac is a senior research specialist in agricultural engineering at the U of I at Urbana-Champaign; Edwards is retired from the Illinois Natural History Survey.

The book is a collection of essays by scholars in a range of fields, from ecology to engineering. The authors contend that unless the farming industry works to protect soil and water quality, the long-term fate of agriculture is uncertain.

Plowing, for example, erodes the topsoil on fields, which could endanger future productivity. In addition, planting the same crops in the same fields year after year robs the land of its nutrients.

Ultimately, some fear, the land could become barren.

The book's essays explore many aspects of agriculture — from the history of pesticide use to the effects a region's social systems have on farming practices.

For example, scholar Sonya Salamon cites German ethnic farmers in rural Minnesota who passed up convenient farming methods in favor of techniques that would preserve the soil for future generations.

These farmers were more interested in passing their family farms on to their children than in operating more efficiently and at a higher profit than their neighbors. This concept of ongoing land stewardship is a key tenet of sustainable agriculture.

The Illinois Stewardship Alliance tries to spread this idea among the state's farmers. "There's a realization on many people's part that we have to address environmental issues in farming," says Renee Robinson, executive director of the Alliance.

The group works with a farm in Cerro Gordo to research farming methods that supply consumers with healthy foods while protecting soil, water and other natural resources. Besides providing a laboratory on sustainable agricultural practices, the group hopes the farm will become an educational tool for young students and others who want to know more about how their food gets to their table.

Such lessons, Robinson says, could encourage consumers to demand that the agriculture industry strive to protect the land.

"People just don't feel connected to their food source," she laments. "Agriculture has lost its connection to the rest of the community."

Jennifer Halperin

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