For the past 50 years, herbicides, pesticides and chemical fertilizers have increased farm production and made our parks and lawns beautiful. But how much harm are they doing to our surface and ground water?

The extent of groundwater contamination from a broad range of chemicals, and how those chemicals are tracked and detected will be the focus of the Thursday evening public lecture at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park.

The free, slide-illustrated lecture will be presented by Dr. Jack Barbash, who has been conducting research for the Survey’s National Water-Quality Assessment Program, for the past nine years.

The lecture will be presented in the second-floor conference room in Building 3 on the USGS campus at 345 Middlefield Road in Menlo Park, beginning at 7 p.m. The Survey’s map sales office will remain open until 7 p.m., Thursday, to accommodate customers who cannot visit during regular hours.

As the Nation's largest water, earth and biological science and civilian mapping agency, the USGS works in cooperation with more than 2,000 organizations across the country to provide reliable, impartial, scientific information to resource managers, planners, and other customers. This information is gathered in every state by USGS scientists to minimize the loss of life and property from natural disasters, contribute to the sound conservation, economic and physical development of the Nation's natural resources, and enhance the quality of life by monitoring water, biological, energy, and mineral resources.

This press release and in-depth information about USGS programs may be found on the USGS home page: http://www.usgs.gov. To receive the latest USGS news releases automatically by email, send a request to listproc@listserver.usgs.gov. Specify the listserver(s) of interest from the following names: water-pr: geologic-hazards-pr; biological-pr; mapping-pr; products-pr; ecture-pr. In the body of the message write: subscribe (name of listserver) (your name). Example: subscribe water-pr joe smith.