I'm curious what specific chemicals were identified. Around here the orchard sites that tend to have polluted water are older sites where copper arsenate was used years ago. The only thing I know of that are used in orchards these days that are likely to enter the aquafer are certain herbicides.

A lot of peach land in SEUS and citrus land in central Florida has EDB or DBCP contamination in deeper water. These were used primarily as nematicides.

angdeer: I too am curious in addition to harvestman. If possible, would you please post the results.

Michael

Angdeer:

Since you have not told us what chemicals tested high in your water samples we are engaged in a guessing game, but my guess is nitrates.

The land on which my orchard is situated in Northern Virginia has been farmed for well over 150 years, and I know that my acre of land was once part of a sizable dairy farm. Years of deposits by livestock eventually work their way down to underground water, and show up as nitrates. Worse yet, many lawn fertilizers are extremely high in the "N" component -- as high as 30% or higher, and a few years of that can cause quite a spike in nitrates. I do fertilize my lawn around the fruit trees in alternate years, using only 10-10-10.

The water from our 100-ft. deep well was tested a couple of years ago by the county, which has a very good lab, and there was no E-coli, no heavy metals, and no chemical contaminants except for nitrates, which the young man who delivered the results said were too high. I don't know for sure what the long-term effects of nitrates might be, but suppose it depends on how much water you drink. My spouse started buying bottled water, which we keep on the counter, but I still drink from the tap because I don't consume all that much water, and I am not that concerned about it.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

I would guess MI to be pie cherries so that's strange since pie cherries don't require much in the way of pesticides (possibly almost nothing up north which is why they're commercially grown there).
Since you left us only guessing my guess would be if the trees are actually the cause it's not pesticides but copper. But if I was a betting man my money would be on Jellyman's guess of nitrates from livestock or fertilizer.

It is a shame what we're doing to our water systems although I doubt the trees are your problem.
What we are doing is even worse in the cities. It's like rain comes along and washes all the lawn chemicals and oil right into what is often the drinking water for the next city down river. God forbid someone has any standing water anywhere left to filter through the dirt, channel it all to the river to be someone else's problem.
Even some farmers have that run-off mentality, I know one that keeps his waterways mowed short (you'd think they were his yard) so more of his chemicals and erosion ends up in the creek.

Finally after many years of building up the soil and tilling I've broken enough of my drain tiles that what used to be a river though my back yard now soaks in. And amazingly my yard doesn't turn into a swamp after every rain.
The cure is so easy, instead of stripping housing developments down to clay and channeling the water elsewhere leave healthy soil and let it soak in. It being such an easy fix that doesn't get done is the real shame.

You should send your water in to get a test done by someone who's not selling water filters.

Here is a link that might be useful: MI water testing

Most orchards are not all that heavily fertilized with nitrogen, but rather row crops (especially corn) and lawns are, including most especially golf courses.

Nitrate is not a problem with healthy adults. Infants (human and calves) and certain older people with special ailments are the problems.

The nitrate is most significant in warning you that other less-commonly (more expensively) analyzed co-applied contaminents such as pesticides and herbicides may be present as well.

Agree with much of what was written.

It doesn't surprise me that your well water tested unsafe. Water quality standards are so high, any untreated water is likely to test unsafe. As some examples, my mother lives in an area where there is no farming, and their well water tests unsafe. I lived in AR for some years. Most of the wells in the area tested unsafe.

It's probably unlikely you're water is contaminated from orchard chemicals. Some of the more common orchard chemicals have pretty short soil half-lives. According to the EPA, Imidan has a soil half life of of between 3 and 7 days. Captan has a soil half life of around 3 days. Something like Indar has a very long half-life but is tightly bound to the soil and has a very low leach potential. Additionally, the amount of pesticide used is frequently minuscule compared to the amount of land mass it's spread over. Again consider Indar. The usage rate is 2 ounces/acre. The top foot of soil weighs about 3.5 million pounds. Therefore the ft./acre application rate is 0.028 ppm. The allowable residue tolerance of Indar on fruit is 2 ppm. So, one could consider, you could eat the top foot of your soil immediately after an Indar application and ingest less chemical than what is allowed on fruit.

Herbicides are another possibility, but the most common orchard herbicide is glyphosate which has an extremely low leach potential.

As was stated, the most likely offender is nitrates. It is possible the orchard is a point source of the nitrate in the groundwater, for they most certainly use fertilizer. But even nitrates come from multiple sources: lawn fertilizer, agriculture, septic systems, even erosion from natural deposits.

Be cautious of Websites that blame agricultural pesticides for everything from bipolar disorder to underarm wetness. While farming does contribute to some groundwater pollution, everything from nature to asphalt roads leaches undesirable substances in our water.

Don, it's good to see you're back. I've missed reading your posts.