EPA Decides to Take a New Look at Atrazine

Good news: today the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it will initiate a review of the health and environmental effects of atrazine, one of the most widely used pesticides in the United States. 

The review will take about a year and will begin with a comprehensive look at the emerging science about atrazine’s potential human health effects.  As an “endocrine disruptor” (meaning that it’s capable of disrupting normal hormonal functions) a host of studies have potentially linked atrazine to a wide variety of health effects from various types of cancer to poor sperm quality in humans.  Atrazine can also be devastating to aquatic ecosystems.  At extremely small doses, atrazine has been shown to turn frogs into hermaphrodites.  It has been linked to sever organ and limb deformities and life-threatening behavioral changes in amphibian species, and it can disrupt fish behavior and the productivity of aquatic plant life.

EPA’s announcement comes just six weeks after NRDC released its report, Poisoning the Well, which brings together EPA data on atrazine contamination in surface waters throughout the Midwest and in drinking water.  We show that the standards applied under the Safe Drinking Water Act do little to protect the public against alarmingly high spikes of atrazine in their drinking water and that the surface waters of the Midwest are similarly subject to very high levels of contamination.

NRDC will, of course, be fully engaged in the EPA’ review.  It’s high time that the United States seriously consider doing what Europe did years ago: ban the stuff.  In the meantime, the Obama Administration (and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson) deserves a lot of credit for having the courage to take this important first step.

View a map of atrazine in Public Water Systems and Watersheds

This post originally appeared on NRDC's Switchboard blog.

Comments

[averagemaninthecountry]

A quick review of the Natural Resources Defence Counicl indicates that atrazine levels are higher in areas of large population than they are in the heart of the corn belt. The high level Ohio River, not 200 miles to the north through the most productive farm land.

If atrazine is such a problem, maybe the same people who pump the metropolitain water could also take it out of their park or off the golf course. That would go a long way to solving the problem without restricting the farmer who carefully monitors its use so that he can rotate with broad leaf crops.

[shelivere]

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