My friends and associates at the old American News Project (now Huffington Post Investigative Fund) sent me this story last night. It's absolutely mind-blowing. One of the nation's most widely-used herbicides has been found to exceed federal safety limits in drinking water in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Kansas. But water customers have not been told and the Environmental Protection Agency has not published the results.
In addition, more than 40 water systems in those states showed spikes in atrazine levels that normally would have triggered automatic notification of customers. In none of those cases were residents alerted.
In interviews, EPA officials did not dispute the data but said they do not consider atrazine a health hazard and said they did not believe the agency or state authorities had failed to properly inform the public. "We have concluded that atrazine does not cause adverse effects to humans or the environment," said Steve Bradbury, deputy office director of the EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs.
One Director of Utilities in Kansas says this: "It concerns me. If it's an actual health hazard and they know and the EPA knows it's getting in water -- I can't believe they're not doing anything about it."
Or watch the video report:
So, there you go. Isn't that just great?