From the HN guidelines:

Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."

Did you? The runoff still comes out of greenhouses where the insecticide will be allowed to be used after the ban. What the article implies is the ban will have little effect & advocates a total ban. Commercial interests won.

> The proposed EU ban would still allow neonicotinoids to be used in greenhouses and as a flea treatment for pets. A new Greenpeace study suggests neonicotinoids are frequently found in waterways close to greenhouses where they have been used.

How's that supposed to happen? I'd suspect drainage would flow vertically into the ground water. Is the water table as high as to level with the river so the pesticide can move sideways?

A river's depth is basically defined by the water table. That's how it stays full of water instead of simply draining into the ground. The first diagram on the Wiki article for water tables shows this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_table

(The first time I heard this was a big "aha" / "of course it works that way, how else would it work" moment for me. Ala XKCD 10000 [0]. Hopefully you're one of today's lucky winners!)

[0] https://www.xkcd.com/1053/

Most ground > flowing water interaction happens at streams, but overall this is correct.

Yep!

A drainage basin or 'catchment area' is any area of land where precipitation collects and drains off into a common outlet, such as into a river, bay, or other body of water. The drainage basin includes all the surface water from rain runoff, snowmelt, and nearby streams that run downslope towards the shared outlet, as well as the groundwater underneath the earth's surface.[1] Drainage basins connect into other drainage basins at lower elevations in a hierarchical pattern, with smaller sub-drainage basins, which in turn drain into another common outlet.[1]

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drainage_basin