Why does this report have so much written about glyphosate if it was infrequently detected in streams and not detected in ground water?
Glyphosate is listed as one of the top 10 herbicides applied to agricultural lands in the Great and Little Miami River Basins; however, its occurrence within these basins has not been widely examined until this study. Furthermore, applications of glyphosate in the Study Unit have continued to increase since the introduction of glyphosate-tolerant soybeans in 1995. The laboratory method used to detect glyphosate was still in development at the time of sampling for this study and had a much higher method detection limit (1.0 micrograms per liter (g/L)) in comparison to the other compounds analyzed. Because laboratory methods are now able to detect glyphosate at lower concentrations, future studies would likely show a higher number of glyphosate detections in samples collected from this Study Unit. Glyphosate binds to soil and does not dissolve in water as easily as other pesticides. Therefore, it is not found in water as frequently as other pesticides.
