OH WHAT A SURPRISE! GLYPHOSATE IS ROUTINELY SPRAYED ON RAILROAD RIGHT OF WAYS (Tracks)

 

So what's the problem? Well Glyphosate has become ubiquitous in our groundwater. Ubiquitous to the point that the Region of Waterloo now test for it in our Annual Water Reports which show various industrial chemicals at different groundwater wells being used as part of our drinking water. Today's Kitchener-Waterloo Record has a Community Notice from Canadian National (CN)  listing all the different retail herbicides and their chemical compounds that they spray along their tracks to reduce weeds and long grass. 

Some of these compounds  have chemical names which I recognize and many do not. One such product is known as "Aspect" and consists of Picloram and 2,4-D both of which I recognize from decades of study regarding  Uniroyal Chemical  in Elmira, Ontario. 2,4-D is known to have small amounts of dioxin in it. Dicamba is used in "Overdrive" which I believe was also used or produced at Uniroyal decades ago. 

Glyphosate is found in three of the products that CN claim they may use namely "Credit Extreme", "Roundup" and "Vision Max". Roundup is likely the best known to non commercial consumers. 

What is very unusual regarding Glyphosate in our drinking wells is the so called concentrations. An old trick amongst water managers and or chemical companies is the use of  terminology such as ND  25 ug/l. Now who the heck knows what that means unless they have some prior training or knowledge? Basically it means that the laboratory could not detect Glyphosate at a Method Detection Limit of 25 parts per billion.  Therefore there may very well be Glyphosate present in the water at 5, 10, or 20 parts per billion but the lab's processes are only capable of detecting it if it is at 25 ug/l or higher.

So ... how significant is that? Well when you read the entire Water Reports and see that the lab involved has no problem detecting concentrations of other chemicals as low as 1 ug/l (i.e. 1 part per billion (ppb)) or even .5 ppb then you start to wonder. Yes high Method Detection Limits are an excellent way to hide detections of toxic chemicals found in our groundwater. 

Thank you CN for being forthcoming but without the rest of the information 99% of our citizens are still in the dark. By the way in the interests of full disclosure let me advise that the drinking standard for Glyphosate in water has been much higher than 25 ppb for years however there is much renewed interest in the compound by the toxicological community and likely the drinking standard will become much lower as further study determines.