By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent

DELAWARE, Ohio — Farm and industry groups are pushing back against what they see as a drive to restrict the use of a popular agricultural herbicide, atrazine.

On Oct. 7, 2009, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it was planning on taking another look at atrazine. “One of Administrator (Lisa) Jackson’s top priorities is to improve the way EPA manages and assesses the risk of chemicals, including pesticides, and as part of that effort, we are taking a hard look at the decision made by the previous administration on atrazine,” said Steve Owens, an assistant administrator at the agency.

At that time the agency sketched out a timeline for its re-review of the herbicide. This included a meeting last week of a scientific advisory panel (SAP) to review a recent study on atrazine.

The agency is also planning to hold meetings in April and September to discuss the scientific literature on the compound. It’s not clear when the review process will be completed.

Last week a number of interested parties submitted comments for the SAP to review and consider. The Ohio Corn Growers Assoc. (OCGA) and Ohio Farm Bureau also held its own meeting last week to present its views on the EPA’s latest plans for the herbicide.
“I hope that the agency can move forward with their review and have a successful assessment,” said Adam Sharp, a lobbyist for the Ohio Farm Bureau. “I’m unaware of any data that would bring up any concern with the product.”

“The use of atrazine has gone down over the years,” said Gene Baumgardner, a board member of the OCGA, in a separate interview. “It’s already restricted. We will continue to use atrazine as long as it’s available.

“There’s no chemical that’s as all-around as effective as atrazine. Atrazine has been studied and studied. It is the most studied compound in the United States.”

Last month about 50 farm groups sent a letter to Jackson protesting her latest moves. “It is truly disheartening when political agendas attempt to overturn scientific process,” the letter reads, which was signed by the National Corn Growers Assoc., the National Sorghum Producers and many others.

“Such is the case in the Jan. 5 letter submitted to the EPA by a handful of special interest groups misrepresenting themselves as the voice of the agriculture community, in an attempt to negate the overwhelming support and confidence in the herbicide atrazine and to gain media attention for themselves.”

The National Resources Defense Council, a major environmental organization, submitted its own comments to the EPA regarding atrazine, just last week.

“Atrazine use is not essential to maintaining high yields of corn and its phase-out would not significantly decrease the number of acres of corn under production,” the letter reads, signed by NRDC staff member Jennifer Sass.

In her letter, Sass maintains that discontinuation of atrazine use would result in a yield loss of just 1.19 percent.

To see other recent public comments about atrazine submitted to the EPA, go online at www.regulations.gov and type in “atrazine,” then select from the choices to narrow your search.