As EPA shrugs, California designates atrazine weed killer as cancer risk
California regulators said Friday they intend to designate the widely used weed killer atrazine as a known carcinogen, a move that contrasts with the opinion of federal regulators.
The California Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) said it will list atrazine as “known to the state to cause cancer under a provision of the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986” referred to as Proposition 65.
OEHHA said it was giving people the opportunity to comment on the plan until Nov. 9.
The state action comes after the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified atrazine — the second most widely used herbicide in the US after glyphosate — as “probably carcinogenic to humans,” in November after a lengthy review of years of scientific studies.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) dismissed the IARC classification last year, deriding the team of cancer scientists and echoing atrazine maker Syngenta in its criticism is saying IARC has “a long history of being severely misguided.”
Public and environmental health advocates have long called for a ban on atrazine not only because of cancer concerns but also due to research tying it to reproductive and developmental harms. California listed atrazine to its list of chemicals “known to the state to cause reproductive toxicity” in 2016.
Syngenta’s own research more than 20 years ago showed high rates of cancer in its pesticide plant workers, a fact the company did not disclose until forced to by litigation.
Atrazine is banned in an estimated 60 other countries, including throughout the European Union, but US farmers apply roughly 70 million pounds of the pesticide to their fields every year, commonly using it to grow corn, sorghum and sugarcane, according to EPA estimates.
In addition to cancer, scientific evidence links exposure to atrazine to birth defects, low birth weights, hormone disruption, and immune system problems. One 2011 study concluded that atrazine “causes severe effects on human health” ranging from effects on the nervous system, immune system, kidney, heart and liver as well as on hormones and enzymes.
While farmworkers are seen as the key population group exposed to atrazine, the chemical commonly washes from farm fields into waterways and is a recurring pollutant of drinking water supplies for millions of Americans.
A study published earlier this week by the Center for Biological Diversity, said that an EPA strategy to address atrazine contamination of US waterways is unlikely to make a dent in widespread atrazine water pollution.
“California is rightfully keeping up with the latest scientific evidence linking atrazine to cancer in people,” said Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center.
“Despite being banned in more than 60 countries around the world, we still use so much atrazine in the U.S. that over a quarter of our rivers and streams are contaminated with a carcinogen. We owe it to our kids and to ourselves to ban atrazine across the country once and for all,” he said.
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