DEQ release – The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality has released a new online tool that will give the public greater access to water quality monitoring data. The Pesticide Stewardship Partnerships Data Viewer is an interactive tool that displays monitoring data collected by Oregon’s Pesticide Stewardship Partnerships, a voluntary program co-managed by DEQ and the Oregon Department of Agriculture. Oregonians who want to know what pesticides are in their local streams can now easily access monitoring results through data viewer. “The development and release of this new tool directly supports DEQ’s efforts to improve transparency and provide easy access to environmental data,” says Jennifer Wigal, DEQ’s Water Quality Administrator. The tool provides access to current and historic pesticide water quality data that DEQ and the Department of Agriculture use to inform the management of the program, which monitors for more than 130 chemicals in Oregon surface waters. Users can view the data in different formats to meet their needs, such as data for a particular pesticide they are interested in, data from a specific location and/or specific time-period, or a summary of all pesticide detections and measured concentrations across PSP basins. The tool also includes an interactive map, which displays where the water samples are collected, the areas that may be contributing pesticides to each sample location, and generalized land uses (e.g., agriculture, urban or forest) to help users better understand the monitoring data. “Orchardists in the Hood River Basin have done amazing work in the last two decades to use pesticides responsibly and reduce concentrations in local streams,” said Brian Nakamura, President of Nakamura Orchards and Board Chair of the Hood River Soil and Water Conservation District. “We want members of the public to be able to view the pesticide data and to increase awareness of the work that’s been done to protect water quality.”
