EDWARDSVILLE -- A Madison County class-action lawsuit filed in 2004 over the use of the popular herbicide atrazine is gaining steam, and one lawyer says it could reshape farming practices nationwide.

Atrazine is an economical pesticide that is used on most corn and grain sorghum grown in the United States. About 80 million pounds of atrazine are used annually in the United States to control broadleaf and other weeds.

The lawsuit was filed by Steve Tillery on behalf of the Holiday Shores Sanitary District. The suit, against various makers and distributors of the pesticide, claims atrazine runoff from farming operations pollutes water supplies. The suit also claims atrazine breaks down into cancer-causing substances.

The defendants, however, argue they've followed federal regulations which have governed atrazine for decades. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says atrazine is safe in drinking water at 3 parts per billion or less -- about a spoonful in an Olympic-size swimming pool.

For now, Holiday Shores is the only plaintiff in the suit, but Tillery wants the plaintiff class to include more water districts in Illinois. He's in the process of adding about eight more districts to the case, and says more want to sign on.

"There are about 80 water providers in Illinois that have atrazine contamination," Tillery said. "There are other cities that are going to join it. They've already contacted us."

Tillery said any Illinois water provider that gets water from a river -- including the Mississippi, Illinois and Kaskaskia -- has atrazine contamination.

Kurtis Reeg, an attorney for Syngenta, the maker of atrazine, said the chemical has been monitored by the federal government since it was first sold in the United States in 1959.

"There've been 6,000 studies which have been looked at by the U.S. EPA regarding atrazine," Reeg said. "They're basically trying to say that federal regulation is meaningless."

Some recent studies have suggested atrazine can cause cancer and other health problems at rates lower than 3 parts per billion. Tillery said studies are indicating that atrazine, even in doses lower than the EPA-approved level, causes cancers, low birth weights and deformities of sex organs. The number of boys being born with deformities, Tillery said, is "really alarming."

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