Anna Salleh from abc.net.au has a superlative piece on the
effects of pesticides on the environment. As suspected for many
years the pesticide run off from farms may be having a negative
affect on the ecology of Australia’s river system. The new
report says that pesticides could be damaging river biodiversity
at levels that have been traditionally regarded as
environmentally safe by authorities, suggests a new study.
“Pesticides are having an effect at 10 to 100 times lower
concentrations than traditionally thought,”Dr Kefford said.
Kefford goes on to say that when authorities try to protect our
streams and rivers from pesticides they rely on thresholds,
under which it is assumed pesticides have no effect. For
example, the European Union recommends the use of a commonly-
used safety factor of 100. This means if a negative effect on an
aquatic organism is only seen at a particular concentration of
pesticide, then a safe level of that pesticide is regarded as
being one hundredth of this concentration :: Read Ann