More than 16,000 farmers and agricultural organizations representing corn, citrus, grain sorghum, sugar cane, and other crops recently united against EPA’s proposed revision to its 2020 atrazine registration review decision, submitting comments calling for the agency to base decisions on credible scientific evidence. Efforts to help farmers speak out against the proposal were coordinated by the Triazine Network, a diverse coalition of state and national agricultural groups across the nation that rely on atrazine and other triazine herbicides to control weeds. The atrazine comment period ended October 7.
“EPA’s actions have been more like a tennis match than a product registration review,“ said Greg Krissek, Triazine Network co-chair and Kansas Corn Growers Association CEO. “In its 2020 decision, EPA finalized and published the aquatic level of concern at 15 parts per billion. Then it used an activist court case against its own decision to reconsider the level of concern. In June, EPA announced it wanted to change the level of concern to an ultra-low 3.4 parts per billion. They floated that number in a 2016 risk assessment but never implemented it. They told us this year that 3.4 ppb was always the number, but that was just their staff’s wishful thinking until they rolled out this year’s proposed revision.”
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