WASHINGTON - In honor of Earth Day, Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., has introduced a bill to ban atrazine, a weed-killing agricultural pesticide that has been linked to drinking-water contamination.
It is his second attempt.
The pesticide is currently banned in the European Union and faces calls for greater regulatory scrutiny in the United States, where the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will convene a scientific panel next week to discuss the potential human effects in drinking water.
Environmental groups say atrazine is the most commonly detected pesticide in U.S. waters and the most prevalent found in Minnesota waters. Atrazine is typically sprayed on cornfields, from where it can run off into rivers and streams.
A report by the Natural Resources Defense Council last year concluded that "banning atrazine is the most effective way for us to keep our rivers and drinking water safe from toxic pesticides."
But a spokesman for Syngenta, which makes the product, told the Huffington Post that three government agencies in Minnesota have determined that current atrazine regulations "protect human health and the environment in Minnesota."
A previous attempt to ban the pesticide two years ago died in a congressional committee.
Kevin Diaz is a correspondent in the Star Tribune Washington Bureau.
