ISA Newsletters

January 2010

Farm Groups Call for New Review of Syngenta’s Atrazine to be Unbiased & Science-Driven

A coalition of Midwest farmers and organizations representing family farmers, farm workers, and people concerned about scientific integrity in the regulatory process, lead by the Land Stewardship Project, are asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to take a closer look at the herbicide atrazine. There is strong concern about the safety of atrazine and how Syngenta, the manufacture in the U.S., has manipulated the regulatory process and continues to promote its use to farmers as completely safe. In a letter recently sent to U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, over a dozen groups maintain that only a completely transparent process that rejects biased research produced by the herbicide’s primary manufacturer, Syngenta, will result in a review that serves the interests of farmers, the general public and the environment.

Many of the concerned farmers and members of the organizations that are calling on the U.S. EPA to take a closer look at atrazine use herbicides and pesticides as part of there farming operations. Many of the concerned and represented farm workers also work on farms where these chemicals are applied. These farmers and farm workers rely on the U.S. EPA in registering pesticides to use a transparent process that is guided by science and places protection of human health and the environment above corporate profits.

Over the years, atrazine has also become one of the most common pesticide contaminants in U.S. surface and groundwater. A monitoring program coordinated by the U.S. EPA in 10 states between 2003 and 2005 found that 94 of 136 public water systems tested had atrazine concentrations above levels that the U.S. government considers “safe.” The U.S. Geological Survey found atrazine present in streams in agricultural areas approximately 80 percent of the time, and in groundwater in agricultural areas around 40 percent of the time. Scientists report that atrazine is an endocrine disruptor, meaning it can interact with the hormone system and have negative health impacts at extremely low levels of exposure. Most farmers and other rural residents in the Midwest get their drinking water directly from private wells that tap into groundwater, making them particularly vulnerable to atrazine contamination.

In October 2009, the U.S. EPA officially reopened an examination of atrazine, which had been previously reviewed and approved for continued use in 2003. The agency will spend the next year reviewing the health and environmental risks of the chemical.

Those organizations and farmers calling on the U.S. EPA to take a closer look at atrazine have asked that the current review of atrazine set a standard for decision-making in the interest of farmers and the public by taking the following actions:

  • The process should be 100 percent transparent. There should be no closed-door meetings of any kind, especially with industry representatives, and summaries of all interactions between U.S. EPA and stakeholders on this topic should be included in the official record (i.e. the docket) and made publicly available.
  • Studies funded by Syngenta should be discounted in the review process. Studies the corporation has submitted in the past have been deeply flawed and have hampered good decision-making. Publicly-funded and peer-reviewed science should be given primary consideration.  
  • All scientific studies supporting the continued registration of atrazine should be made available for public scrutiny or removed from consideration. Syngenta and other atrazine registrants should not be permitted to hide critical data from independent scientific examination by claiming “confidential business information.” For the sake of transparency and to ensure farmer and farm worker confidence in its decisions, U.S. EPA should only rely on studies that are publicly available.
  • If after review the science indicates atrazine is a threat to human health or the environment, U.S. EPA should take swift and clear action to protect farmers and the general public.

As part of the EPA’s officially re-opened examination of atrazine the EPA is taking public comments. If you wish to submit public comments in regards to the U.S. EPA’s examination of atrazine you can do so by following the process below.

  • The first step is to identify the subject you are commenting on with a docket control number. Which for atrazine it is OPP-34237.
  • To submit your comments via email, email your comments to opp-docket@epa.gov, and make sure you include in the subject line and body of the email the docket control number listed above.
  • The deadline for submitting comments to the EPA is April 14th.

 

For more detailed information on the Atrazine you can view the Land Stewardship Project and Pesticide Action Network North America’s report on atrazine at the following address, http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/pdf/AtrazineReportJan2010.pdf