Movement of DBCP in laboratory soil columns and field soils to groundwater

The nematocide DBCP has been an effective chemical for the control of nematodes but, because of contamination of groundwaters and for health reasons, its use has been curtailed. To evaluate the tendency of DBCP to leach, adsorption and transport characteristics were examined on laboratory samples of a field soil through which the chemical was also leached. Adsorption of DBCP on Panoche clay loam was small, and displacement experiments in soil columns demonstrated that loading rate and flux of water were significant for the dissipation of the chemical by microbial degradation and/or volatilization. Dissipation rate constants were estimated by optimizing the fit to experimental BTCs of the convective-dispersion equation with linear adsorption and a first-order degradation rate. Although field measurements did not establish conclusively that leaching to groundwater would occur in a fine-textured soil, evidence was obtained that leaching below the root zone could occur in many soils.