16,000 farmers and agricultural organizations in the United States jointly opposed EPA's revision of atrazine registration review results
Recently, more than 16,000 farmers and representatives of agricultural organizations in the United States (corn, citrus, grain sorghum, sugar cane and other crops) united to oppose the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s proposed revision of its 2020 atrazine registration review results, and commented on this. Submit an opinion requesting that the agency base its decisions on sound scientific evidence.
Farmers' public opposition to the proposal was coordinated by the Triazine Network, a diverse coalition of U.S. state and national agricultural groups that rely on atrazine and other triazine herbicides to control weeds. The deadline for atrazine comments is October 7.
Greg Krissek, co-chairman of the Triazine Network and CEO of the Kansas Corn Growers Association, said: "EPA's move is more like a tennis match than a product registration review. In the 2020 decision, EPA finalized and announced the The water was polluted at 15 ppb. It then used an activist's court case against its decision to reconsider the level of pollution.
In June, the EPA announced that it wanted to reduce pollution levels to an extremely low 3.4 ppb. The EPA proposed that number in a 2016 risk assessment, but it was never implemented. This year they say it has been at 3.4 ppb, but several farmers and agricultural group representatives say that was just wishful thinking by the EPA until they rolled out the atrazine revision proposed this year.
In the commentary, growers expressed frustration with the EPA's lack of transparency and its repeated attempts to take steps to end atrazine's effective use in weed control. In addition to the ultra-low level of 3.4 ppb, the EPA has doubled or even tripled that by building an over-forecasting model that predicts that 72% of corn acreage in the US is in violation.
Gary Marshall, co-chair of the Triazine Network and executive director emeritus of the Missouri Corn Growers Association, said, "Instead of relying on actual water testing, the EPA will simply look at maps made with problematic modeling tools to determine whether growers need to regenerate water." Add one to four mitigations to the problematic picklist."
