EPA and Syngenta Agree on Interim Atrazine Re-Registration Requirements

EPA and Syngenta have reached agreement on some interim atrazine re-registration requirements under FIFRA and the FQPA. This agreement includes the following terms:

• Site-specific management of watersheds susceptible to runoff, while still allowing use of atrazine;


• an increase in monitoring of watersheds where atrazine is used the most;


• establishment of an additional trigger for atrazine and its metabolites in "raw water" of 37.5 ppb on a 90-day rolling average;


• terms for harmonizing labels on products containing atrazine to comply with EPA mandates; and


• confirmation of the classification of atrazine as "not likely" to cause cancer in humans.

CRE has been notified that Syngenta and other atrazine registrants do not consider it appropriate to use raw water concentration measurements as triggers to require mitigation measures to protect human health, but in order to reach a settlement of issues raised by EPA, the registrants have agreed that such raw water triggers could be used.

CRE also notes that this agreement reemphasizes EPA's conclusion that atrazine is not a human carcinogen. This conclusion was reached after 8 years of review of the best available science and facts.

Other issues, including questions about the potential for amphibian effects, will be addressed in another atrazine registration decision to be issued in October 2003 after SAP review.