Federal Lawsuit Filed Over Atrazine

On March 8, 2010, St. Louis trial lawyer Stephen Tillery and his Dallas-based partner, the Baron & Budd law firm, filed a lawsuit in the Southern District of Illinois on behalf of 17 cities in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, and Missouri, asking Syngenta to pay for water filtration in their communities.

Plaintiffs in the case are water systems in Coulterville, Evansville, Farina, and Gillespie, and Greenville, Illinois; Creston, Iowa; Jasper, Indiana; Carbondale, Dodge City, Marion, Miami County, Oswego, and Plains, Kansas; Cameron and Concordia, Missouri; and Monroeville and Upper Sandusky, Ohio.

These systems are in compliance with drinking water standards. It is not about atrazine. It is about greedy lawyers duping the systems into thinking they will get something for nothing.

It should be noted that a similar federal lawsuit was dismissed in 1999 when the judge ruled that removing safe and approved levels of atrazine from drinking water was unnecessary.

Atrazine Is Safe

Atrazine is an herbicide farmers have safely used for more than 50 years. EPA has more than 6,000 atrazine studies in its files. It was after an exhaustive 12-year review of many of these studies that EPA re-registered atrazine as safe for use in 2006. EPA stated that the cumulative risks associated with triazine herbicides pose “no harm that would result to the general US population, infants, children or other . . . consumers.”

Atrazine has also been given a clean bill of health by the governments of Great Britain and Australia, as well as by the World Health Organization.

For 50 years, atrazine has been used safely in agriculture with no adverse effects on humans or animals.

Not surprisingly, media reports have preceded any actual legal receipt notifying the registrant of this action. Included with this update is the actual filing from the plaintiffs.

For the facts about atrazine, please go to http://www.atrazine.com


Illinois Class Action Complaint Against Syngenta