HPLC Screening and GC-MS Confirmation of Triazine Herbicides Residues in Drinking Water from Sugar Cane Area in Brazil

The extensive use of chlorotriazines as selectiveherbicides in agriculture and their relatively highpersistence imply that these compounds are now presentin the environment, contaminating surface and groundwater. In European countries, United States andCanada, the drinking water ordinance demands a limitedconcentration of 0.5 μg L^-1 for the sum of allpesticides and 0.1 μg L^-1 with respect to eachcompound, implying on the necessity of sensitive andselective analytical methods. In the present study wedescribe two methods for the analysis of atrazine,simazine and ametryn residues in surface and groundwater collected from the Espraiado Stream watershed,Ribeirão Preto region, SP, Brazil. The HPLC methodused for sample screening was based on herbicideextraction with dichloromethane:isopropanol (9:1, v/v)followed by reversed-phase chromatography (RP-8) withdetection at 220 nm. The presence of herbicides wasconfirmed by GC-MS after ethyl acetate extraction. Atotal of 250 samples collected at different sites fromOctober 1995 to July 1996 were analyzed. Ametrynresidues were detected in 17 samples but almost alwaysat concentrations below those maximum levels recommended by international agencies of environmental control.