Not only do they not decrease, but rather increase the pesticides used in Italy. And by now 259 have been found in Italian waters: the most widespread is glyphosate (together with its metabolite AMPA), the subject of battles and a long tug of war also in the EU. Ispra, which has published its report "Pesticides in water", assigns the golden palm to the herbicide that has the highest number of exceedances with respect to the environmental quality standards for water (EWS). The presence of other herbicides is also noteworthy, as in the case of metolachlor, which exceeds the limits in 7,7% of the monitoring points, and its metabolite metolachlor-hexa, which however is only sought in Friuli Venezia Giulia and exceeding the limits in 16% of the sites, as well as quinclorac, exceeding the limits in 10,2% of the cases. These values demonstrate the opportunity to extend monitoring in a uniform manner also to other Regions” compared to the 5 currently examined by the Institute.
The surveys conducted in the two-year period 2015-16 concerned 35.353 samples of surface and groundwater analyzed in Italy. They had been found pesticides in 67% of the 1.554 monitoring points of surface water and in 33,5% of the 3.129 points of groundwater, with values above the EQS in 23,9% of surface water and 8,3% of groundwater. In addition to herbicides which remain the most frequently encountered substances, the presence of fungicides and insecticides also increases significantly.
Coming to the territorial division, the greatest presence of pesticides is found in the Po-Veneto plain, where the investigations are generally more in-depth (in terms of number of samples and substances sought); in fact, more than 50% of the monitoring points of the national network are concentrated in the northern regions. In the rest of the country the situation is still quite uneven: in fact, no information has been received from Calabria and in other Regions, the territorial coverage is limited, just as the number of substances sought remains limited, despite the increase.
It is truly worrying that the presence of pesticides is well above the national average in some regions, namely in over 90% of surface water points in Friuli Venezia Giulia, the province of Bolzano, Piedmont and Veneto, and more than 80% of points in Emilia Romagna and Tuscany. It exceeds 70% in Lombardy and the province of Trento. In groundwater it is particularly high in Friuli 81%, Piedmont 66% and Sicily 60%. A situation which, despite the increase in controls carried out by Ispra, makes us understand how much the guard level has risen.
The maps indicate a concentration of critical points along the entire Po-Venetian plain and a reduction of critical points in the center and south, "but it is a superficial reading - he specified Pietro Paris, head of the Dangerous Substances sector of Ispra questioned by La Stampa - because more than 50% of the monitoring was carried out in the northern regions, no data arrived from Calabria, very few from Puglia ". There is a problem of dissemination and standardization of monitoring and the Mezzogiorno is lagging behind, with some exceptions: about 200 substances were searched for in Ragusa and its surroundings, in Lazio the analyzes revealed a good state of surface water.
To contrast these negative aspects, there is a positive datum at least for the future prospects: the sales of toxic and very toxic substances decreased by 36,7% between 2002 and 2015, the sales of plant protection products also decreased, down from 150.000 to 136.055 tons, although the two-year period 2015-16 saw a recovery in sales. “However, the decrease in sales – finally observes Ispra – does not correspond to a similar decrease in the frequency of pesticides in the water. In the period 2003-2016, in fact, in addition to the number of substances found, the points affected by the presence of pesticides also increased, growing by about 20% in surface water and 10% in groundwater”.
