GROUNDWATER AND PESTICIDES

In the country, in the garden and in the forrest a lot of pesticides are being used in order to destroy vermin, weed and plant diseases. If these poisons are used in to high doses, it will drain down into the groundwater and cause health damage.

Today, the water that we drink contains pesticides used in the 1950 - 1970´s  ( this means, that it takes the pesticides
about 30 years to reach our water supplies). Since the 1950´s,  when the use of pesticides started, and up to the 1980´s the use of pesicides has increased drammatically. Therefore, we can expect  much higher concentrations of pesticides, when the water from this period reaches the ground water. We can mobilize some arrangement in order to protect our groundwater. For instance, we can fallow the fields, convert fields into forrests, ban the spraying with pesticides and rearrange ecological farming. It is difficult to undo the dammage that already has been done. But we are able to clean the water by sending it through a filter of active coal.

The government has entered into an agreement about fortifying the efforts in protecting the groundwater against the pesticides. In the end of 1998 a bill will be setteled, which gives the opportunities to ban or decrease the use of pesticides
 in places where the groundwater is specifically vulnerable.
 

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