For decades, I’ve read stories about U.S. corporations plying their wares in Third World countries when health or environmental regulations limited their ability to do so here at home. Historically, governments in many such nations (particularly those with weaker democratic traditions) have been more accepting of toxins in their air, water and food than the U.S. or Europe.
Now, we learn that the U.S. itself has become a dumping ground for chemicals banned in Europe. Atrazine, an herbicide manufactured by the Swiss corporation and banned in the European Union, has been found at levels above federal safety standards in many Midwestern farming communities. For the past several years, the Environmental Protection Agency has been aware of these problems but refused to notify the public. It took a Freedom of Information Act claim to unearth the truth.
One of the nation’s most widely-used herbicides has been found to exceed federal safety limits in drinking water in four states, but water customers have not been told and the Environmental Protection Agency has not published the results.
Records that tracked the amount of the weed-killer atrazine in about 150 watersheds from 2003 through 2008 were obtained by the Huffington Post Investigative Fund under the Freedom of Information Act. An analysis found that yearly average levels of atrazine in drinking water violated the federal standard at least ten times in communities in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Kansas, all states where farmers rely heavily on the herbicide.
One of the true tests of a government’s responsiveness to its people is its willingness to truthfully report health and safety data, and then act on such findings when they pose a danger. For the past several years, the EPA has clearly failed in this mission.
