Green | August 25, 2009 | 10 comments

The EPA fails to inform public about weed-killer in drinking water

source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/25/danielle-ivory-discusses_n_268350.html

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leahl
From the Huffington Post Investigative Fund:

"One of the nation's most widely-used herbicides has been found to exceed federal safety limits in drinking water in four states, but water customers have not been told and the Environmental Protection Agency has not published the results.

Records that tracked the amount of the weed-killer atrazine in about 150 watersheds from 2003 through 2008 were obtained by the Huffington Post Investigative Fund under the Freedom of Information Act. An analysis found that yearly average levels of atrazine in drinking water violated the federal standard at least ten times in communities in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Kansas, all states where farmers rely heavily on the herbicide.

In addition, more than 40 water systems in those states showed spikes in atrazine levels that normally would have triggered automatic notification of customers. In none of those cases were residents alerted.

In interviews, EPA officials did not dispute the data but said they do not consider atrazine a health hazard and said they did not believe the agency or state authorities had failed to properly inform the public. "We have concluded that atrazine does not cause adverse effects to humans or the environment," said Steve Bradbury, deputy office director of the EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs."

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10 comments // The EPA fails to inform public about weed-killer in drinking water

  • mae37
    • 0
      mae37  

    • Ask the state of Vermont why they banned atrazine some years ago. Deadly dangerous to humans, animals, and earth.

    • 2 years ago
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  

    • I do. It's called a filter. Hopefully the bottled water industry won't take these reports and try to skew them to say bottled water is safer when it is the same water in an industry even less regulated than tap. But I'm sure there would be many idiots out there who would believe them.

    • 2 years ago
  • QuestionGeek
  • lookatmypix
    • 0
      lookatmypix  

    • I guess we'll have to wait an other twenty to thirty years to have EPA finally confirm its dangers.
      Just like tobacco,mercury,asbestos and the list goes on forever.

      And they all lived happily ever after with cancer.

      THE END

    • 2 years ago
  • QuestionGeek
  • Incredulous
    • 0
      Incredulous  

    • Sass JB, Colangelo A. -- Health and Environment Program, Natural Resources Defense Council, 1200 New York Avenue, N.W., Suite 400, Washington, DC 20005, USA.

      Atrazine is a common agricultural herbicide with endocrine disruptor activity. There is evidence that it interferes with reproduction and development, and may cause cancer. Although the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved its continued use in October 2003, that same month the European Union (EU) announced a ban of atrazine because of ubiquitous and unpreventable water contamination. The authors reviewed regulatory procedures and government documents, and report efforts by the manufacturer of atrazine, Syngenta, to influence the U.S. atrazine assessment, by submitting flawed scientific data as evidence of no harm, and by meeting repeatedly and privately with EPA to negotiate the government's regulatory approach.

      Many of the details of these negotiations continue to be withheld from the public, despite EPA regulations and federal open-government laws that require such decisions to be made in the open.

      Couple this information with the endocrine disruptor activity of bisphenol A, used to coat the inside of water supply pipes, and you have a recipe for cancer.

      http://website.lineone.net/~mwarhurst/bisphenol.html

      but hey, EPA officials do not consider atrazine a health hazard, or bisphenol either.

    • 2 years ago
  • patriotaxe
    • 0
      patriotaxe  

    • "We have concluded that atrazine does not cause adverse effects to humans or the environment," said Steve Bradbury, deputy office director of the EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs."

      Thanks, Steve. I feel better about this already.

    • 2 years ago
  • QuestionGeek
  • JanforGore
  • leahl
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