Lawsuit says US EPA has for decades failed to curb pollution from cancer-linked pesticide atrazine

A new lawsuit filed in a US federal court asks a judge to order the Trump administration to deal with widespread pollution from atrazine, a hormone-disrupting pesticide. The chemical, which is linked to cancer, has regularly been detected at levels that threaten wildlife and human health. The nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity is among the lead plaintiffs.

What the suit alleges

According to a recent review of federal records, atrazine contaminates nearly 25%, or roughly 860,000 miles, of rivers in the continental United States. Those waterways feed more than 20% of surface drinking water intakes nationwide and more than 675,000 private and commercial wells.

The complaint says the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has for decades failed to address this surface-water pollution under the Clean Water Act. It asks the court to order the agency to develop water quality standards for the chemical. A plan was due in 1999 but has not been put in place. A separate plan the EPA developed under pesticide law, rather than water law, would address only about 1% of atrazine pollution, a peer-reviewed study found.

About atrazine

Atrazine is the second most widely used pesticide in the US, with about 70m pounds sprayed on cropland each year. It can seriously affect human and animal hormones, particularly in developing children. It was found to "chemically castrate" frogs and make some change sex. It has been effectively banned in 60 countries, including the European Union, since 2003, and California this month proposed adding it to its list of carcinogens.

Criticism of the EPA plan

Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity, called the EPA's pesticide-law plan "worthless" on closer inspection. It would require farmers who apply the maximum legal amount to cut back, but very few do, so the effect would be negligible, he said. The plan also offers a "menu" of about 30 actions to reduce runoff, yet several, such as keeping a log of pesticide use, do not reduce runoff, he said. Donley argued that the only real solution is a ban.