| Performance goal: Minimise pesticide contamination in drinking water. |
|---|
| Description: Pesticides can be classed as either inorganic (do not contain carbon) or organic (contain carbon). Performance criteria should only be used for guidance, as general values are from the European Drinking Water Directive (DWI, 2010). Specific pesticides can have highly variable guideline health values. For further information on guideline health values for specific pesticides, please refer to the ADWG. |
| Performance criteria: Pesticide contamination is controlled. If pesticide contamination is detected or suspected: Best practice levels: individual pesticides 0–0.1μg/L, total pesticides 0–0.5μg/L Maximum acceptable levels: individual pesticides 0.1μg/L, total pesticides 0.5μg/L |
| Minimum requirements |
| If pesticide contamination is detected or suspected: |
| Treatment to reduce concentrations to acceptable levels: See Table 18 (below) for a comparison of the effectiveness of pre-treatments against pesticides. |
| Pesticide use on the farm: |
| Best practice options |
| If pesticide contamination is detected, investigate other common inorganic compounds used in pesticides, including: antimony, arsenic, copper, cadmium, and chromium. |
| Protect water sources from pesticide runoff. |
Table 18. Effectiveness of pre-treatments against pesticides
| Effectiveness against pesticides | Pesticides |
|---|---|
| Pre-treatment | |
| PP filter | – |
| Ceramic filter | – |
| Pleated filter | – |
| Rapid sand filters | – |
| Semi-rapid sand filters | – |
| Slow sand filters | L |
| Centrifugal filtration | – |
| PAC | LM |
| GAC | M |
| BAC | MH |
| Ion-exchange resins | – |
| Chemical coagulates | L |
| Lime softening | – |
| Chemical oxidation | LM |
| Reverse osmosis | H |
| Nanofiltration | MH |
| Ultrafiltration | M |
| Microfiltration | L |
| Electrodialysis | L |
| Electrodialysis reversal | L |
| Capacitive deionisation | L |
| Membrane capacitive deionisation | L |
| Aeration | L |
| Electronic water conditioning | – |
| L: low, LM: low to moderate, M: moderate, MH: moderate to high, H: high, –: N/A | |
