The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(a)
It is the right of every citizen in this state to drink safe, potable, wholesome, and pure drinking water.
(b)
The health and economic prosperity of rural communities and individual farm families in the state are threatened by contaminated drinking water supplies because of their proximity to the use of pesticides.
(c)
Pesticide contaminants and other organic chemicals are being found at an ever increasing rate in underground drinking water supplies.
(d)
The United States Environmental Protection Agency has concluded that evidence of relatively localized levels of pesticide pollution should be treated as a warning of more widespread, future contamination.
(e)
Groundwater once polluted cannot be easily cleaned up; thus, there is a considerable potential that groundwater pollution will continue long after actions have been taken to restrict application of the pesticide to land.
(f)
Due to the potential widespread exposure to public drinking water supplies from pesticide applications to the land and the resultant risk to public health and welfare, the potential for pollution of groundwater due to pesticide use must be considered in the registration, renewal, and reregistration process.
(g)
It is the purpose of this article to prevent further pesticide pollution of the groundwater aquifers of this state which may be used for drinking water supplies.