By TIM ALEXANDER
Illinois Correspondent

PEORIA, Ill. — A class action lawsuit brought by water districts throughout Illinois seeks to establish near-zero tolerance for the presence of atrazine in municipal drinking water supplies, an action that could potentially force corn farmers to use genetically modified organisms or GMO corn. The suit was filed by attorney Stephen Tillery in a district court in Madison County against Syngenta Crop Protection Inc., and Growmark, Inc.

The lawsuit, which had been pending for five years, was given the green light when a judge recently rejected Syngenta’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit as without merit. Tillery told news sources the lawsuit has gained momentum due to a recent report by the National Institutes of Health linking low infant birth weight to atrazine levels as small as 0.1 parts per billion.

Though the Illinois lawsuit does not seek a ban on atrazine use, the Natural Resources Defense Council has requested the EPA cancel atrazine’s registration and revoke all atrazine tolerance levels.

Ken McCauley, past president of the National Corn Growers Association and a corn producer from White Cloud, Kansas, told Farm World that while the lawsuit in Illinois and a similar suit seeking more stringent control of atrazine use in Kansas do not call for outright bans of the product, the actions are “about getting the (atrazine) level down to zero.”

McCauley, a current member of the Kansas Corn Checkoff Board who participated in an EPA-led scientific panel studying atrazine use in March, said he has farmed for 40 years using atrazine. He said atrazine, which is used as an additive to enhance performance in products used for weed resistance in corn and sorghum fields, is “beneficial and important” to farmers. The lawsuits in Illinois and Kansas are without merit, McCauley insists, because EPA-mandated levels for atrazine presence in drinking water have not been breached.

“That’s why it’s so important that we set the record straight on how safe (atrazine) is,” McCauley said. “The focus of the lawsuits is not about the (water) systems meeting the EPA standards; I don’t think there is any system that is not meeting the standard today. As far as the EPA requires, these water systems are above the threshold, so the issue of (atrazine) being a hazard is just not there as far as science and the EPA are concerned.” 

McCauley said he practices no-till planting and applies herbicide using GPS, which helps to ensure “practically zero” runoff of chemicals from his farm fields. Combined with other modern technologies and best practices observed by most of today’s farmers, he said, the risk of atrazine contamination in water sources is much lower now than in the past.

“If you look at atrazine when it came on the scene close to 50 years ago, things have rapidly changed. Today we are finding compounds still in the soil from many years ago, but if we had the same tools then as we have today I don’t think we’d have a lot of these issues,” said McCauley. “Today, we use a fraction of the rate per acre that we used back in 1965 or even 20 years ago.”
Tillery’s class action lawsuit seeks compensation from Syngenta for water districts to cover costs incurred in removing atrazine from water supplies. It could cost over $1 billion per year to remove atrazine presence from drinking water on a national level according to research, said Tillery.

Alan Nadel, an attorney for Syngenta, said the Switzerland-based company will refute the lawsuits by using results from studies conducted by the World Health Organization and the National Cancer Institute which show EPA-mandated levels for atrazine are safe.

Ironically, Syngenta recently began working with the EPA to test water samples for atrazine levels from more than 125 locations on a weekly and bi-weekly basis.

McCauley said a ban on atrazine use – or regulations so stringent that producers won’t be able to use the product – could result in higher food prices for consumers and food safety concerns. He hopes it doesn’t come to that.

“The fact is that no one, according to EPA standards, is being harmed by atrazine in their drinking water,” McCauley stated. “There is no evidence.”