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Coalition says state distorting findings

Shannon Dininny Associated Press

YAKIMA – An environmental group has taken issue with the way the state Department of Agriculture released results of a pesticide study earlier this week, saying the agency misled the public into believing no pesticides were found in two watersheds.

On Monday, the state Department of Agriculture reported results from the first year of a three-year study to monitor pesticide concentrations in salmon-bearing streams. No pesticide residues were detected in about 96 percent of water samples from two Washington state watersheds, the agency reported.

The Washington Toxics Coalition did not find fault with the report itself. However, the report showed that pesticides were found in 100 percent of the samples taken from the streams, which is not what the agency reported in its news release, said Erika Schreder, staff scientist for the Washington Toxics Coalition.

“It’s misleading,” Schreder said Wednesday.

State officials don’t dispute that pesticides were found in all the samples taken from the streams. However, they won’t back off on how they reported the findings.

About 155 samples were taken from the streams. Those samples then were tested individually for 144 specific pesticides, resulting in about 22,000 tests. In those tests, the specific pesticides being searched for were detected only 862 times, producing the 96 percent rate for finding no pesticide residue, said Bridget Moran, manager of the state Agriculture Department’s Endangered Species Program.

Moran took exception to claims the agency was being misleading.

“Every sample we took (from the streams) we found pesticides, as we would expect when we look for 144 pesticides,” Moran said. “We’re just trying to put out the entire picture of all the data we looked at.”

In 2002, the state Department of Agriculture contracted with the state Department of Ecology to monitor pesticide concentrations in salmon-bearing streams. Results of the three-year study will help determine any mitigation efforts that might be needed to reduce exposure.