Pesticides in Recreational Lakes (Completed)

Significance:

• Neonicotinoid pesticides are ubiquitous in both urban and agricultural streams

• Cause paralysis and death to non-target organisms, such as honeybees, through photo-transformation resulting in highly toxic byproducts

Objective:

• Identify trends of common use pesticide occurrence in three recreational lakes with varying watershed land uses.

Hypothesis:

• Neonicotinoid pesticides would be highest in the agricultural watersheds.

Conclusions:

• Pesticide accumulation in lakes was highest in the urban lake compared to the predominately herbaceous and agricultural watersheds.

• Imidacloprid exceeded both acute and chronic invertebrate limits.

• Pesticides were both persistent entering and remaining within recreational waters throughout the year. 

Funded: USGS

Publication: Satiroff, J., Messer, T.L., Mittelstet, A.R., and Snow, D. 2021. Pesticide occurrence and persistence entering recreational lakes in watersheds of varying land uses. Environmental Pollution. 273: 116399. doi. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2020.116399

Graduate Student: Jessica Satiroff (MS Environmental Engineering; Graduated 2020)