What are state agencies doing to track the presence of atrazine in water throughout Minnesota?
The presence of atrazine in public drinking water supplies is tracked through the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) compliance monitoring program, serving approximately 80% of the state’s population. While private wells are not routinely regulated for contamination by any state agency, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health, local units of government, and non-governmental organizations have conducted sampling of private wells through special projects. The Department of Agriculture routinely monitors for atrazine and its chlorinated degradates in surface and groundwater water resources and provides monitoring results in a publically available annual report. The Department of Agriculture has focused groundwater and spring monitoring in two areas considered particularly vulnerable to contamination: the central sand plains and the southeast karst region. Atrazine is also part of a long-term intensive surface water monitoring program that focuses on southeastern Minnesota a
