House committee kills atrazine ban

Minnesota Public Radio
3/17/2005
Lorna Benson

A House Agriculture committee has rejected three bills that would have banned or restricted use of the farm herbicide atrazine. Critics of the weed killer had argued that new scientific studies show the chemical causes reproductive deformities in frogs, and is linked to low sperm counts and some cancers in humans. Atrazine supporters challenged those findings and said if the chemical is banned, Minnesota farmers won't be able to compete with growers in other states.

Similar bills have been proposed in the Senate. But lawmakers doubt they'll get a hearing. They say attempts to ban the chemical are probably over for this Legislative session.

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Herbicide's ban unlikely, for now

But debate on atrazine's effects far from over

BY DENNIS LIEN

St. Paul Pioneer Press
2/21/2005

For the better part of a half-century, atrazine has been the weed-killer of choice for Minnesota's corn farmers.

Not only is it affordable, farmers say, it's effective in relatively small amounts, especially when used with other chemicals.

But troubling questions about the herbicide have emerged in recent years, with researchers and critics tying it to sexual deformities in frogs and increased health risks for people. Now, state lawmakers are pushing bills that would restrict its use next year and ban it by 2008.

The bills are long shots this session, but the debate isn't likely to go away.

"When we have a substance that feminizes male (frogs) … and increases the risks of cancer and other illnesses in people, we should be factoring in the health and environmental impacts of its use, and not just using it to grow 3 percent more corn,'' said Sen. John Marty, DFL-Roseville, chief sponsor of a Senate bill banning atrazine use.

WEED CONTROL

Al Christopherson has been using atrazine on his Kandiyohi County farm for years, applying it with other chemicals to get just the right mix to control broadleaf weeds. With the Environmental Protection Agency approving its use long ago, Christopherson hasn't second-guessed himself a bit.

"If we don't believe the EPA, then who are we going to believe?'' asked Christopherson, president of the Minnesota Farm Bureau.

Indeed, Minnesotans have embraced atrazine, one of the most heavily used herbicides in the United States. In a typical year, 2 million pounds of atrazine are applied to Minnesota fields, with the herbicide used on up to half the acreage planted in corn.

No one, including the farmers who use it, is naive enough to believe it can't cause problems if used incorrectly. But Christopherson said farmers are careful and apply it at increasingly lower levels.

Still, there's no question atrazine has contaminated state water supplies.

For 20 years, state agencies have detected low levels of atrazine and other chemicals in surface water, groundwater and, in some instances, drinking water.

Typically, 25 percent to 75 percent of shallow monitoring wells in the sandy area of central Minnesota have shown trace amounts of atrazine. Over time, the frequency of atrazine detections has remained about the same, but levels have gone down.

"We have seen, over time, a statistically significant decrease in concentrations of atrazine in monitoring wells in those sandy areas,'' said Greg Buzicky, director of agronomy and plant protection for the Minnesota Department of Agriculture.

Those levels are below federal health-risk limits, which are 3 parts per billion for municipal drinking water.

Just last year, the agriculture department found small amounts of atrazine in four of 71 drinking water wells in the state's agricultural region. The highest level was 1.52 ppb.

The state health department, meanwhile, has proposed lowering its current 20 ppb standard for well water to 4 ppb. No earlier drinking-water detections were high enough to be considered a health concern, according to Buddy Ferguson, a spokesman for the department.

WARNING SIGNS

Marty and others, however, are concerned because of recent research tying atrazine to a host of ills.

Tyrone Hayes, a University of California-Berkeley endocrinologist, said his studies have shown atrazine disrupts the sexual development of frogs at concentrations much lower than allowable federal limits, often turning males into hermaphrodites — creatures with male and female sexual characteristics. Other studies, meanwhile, have linked atrazine to increases in prostate cancer among some factory workers exposed to the chemical and developmental problems in children.

At a recent pesticide conference at the University of St. Thomas, Hayes and other researchers included atrazine among a growing class of endocrine disruptors, chemicals that disrupt normal development patterns.

A year ago, the European Union banned the use of atrazine in member states.

However, Syngenta, the Swiss-based manufacturer of atrazine, defends its use, saying it works better than most pesticides and stands up to EPA requirements.

Moreover, the EPA and the state agriculture department stand by the chemical. A little more than a year ago, for example, the EPA reapproved atrazine on an interim basis, saying studies haven't shown a likely cancer risk from exposure to the chemical.

PROPOSED BAN

That doesn't impress Marty or Rep. Jean Wagenius, DFL-Minneapolis. Their legislation would ban atrazine in some parts of the state next year and throughout the state in 2008.

Mustering support from the Legislature, however, won't be easy.

As an example, Wagenius tried to attach some atrazine-testing language to an ethanol bill last week. Because the bill would encourage corn production and atrazine use, she said the Legislature shouldn't pass it without more discussion about atrazine's possible effects.

The chairman of the House Environment and Natural Resources Committee, however, wouldn't let her introduce her amendment. Rep. Tom Hackbarth, R-Cedar, said it wasn't appropriate because, among other things, her amendment didn't pertain to the bill.

Wagenius said Hackbarth's ruling was the first time in her 19 years on the committee that anything like that had happened to her.

"Groundwater is clearly within the jurisdiction of the environment committee,'' Wagenius said. "It seems they were very desperate not to talk about it.''