atrazine

Also Known As:

atrazine

Description

Atrazine is a pre- and post-emergent herbicide in the triazine family (which also includes simazine and propazine).  Atrazine is used to kill both broadleaf and grassy weeds. It is the second most widely used herbicide in the United States, after glyphosate. Atrazine is mainly used in agriculture.  The greatest use of atrazine by far is on corn.

Besides corn, its primary uses are on sugarcane and on residential lawns in Florida and the Southeast. Other agricultural applications include sorghum, as well as minor crops such as guava, hay, macadamia nuts, pasture grasses, and winter wheat. Other non-agricultural uses include golf courses, rangeland, landscape maintenance, ornamental trees, forests, Christmas trees, recreational areas, right-of-ways, and industrial areas. Currently, the heaviest atrazine uses per unit area occur in portions of Delaware, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Nebraska.
Once in the environment, atrazine is slow to break down in soil and water. As a result, it is frequently detected as a contaminant in streams, rivers, lakes and drinking water, particularly in the Midwest. Contamination is usually highest in agricultural areas in the spring, when atrazine use peaks and large amounts of the herbicide run off in rain into surface water.

Due to health and environmental concerns, several European countries have banned atrazine. The European Union has announced it will ban atrazine in 2005.

Due to its ability to disrupt the endocrine system and interfere with hormones, atrazine has been linked to limb deformities, abnormal sexual changes, weakened immune systems, and declining populations of frogs and amphibians.  While atrazine can cause sexual abnormalities in several species, frogs are especially sensitive. Scientists have found that frogs exposed to atrazine have multiple, mixed gonads and become demasculinized—at levels 10,000-30,000 times lower than levels previously thought to be non-toxic to frogs.  Although counterintuitive, there is a body of evidence showing that atrazine and other hormonally active compounds are most damaging at trace concentrations.

 Infants and children are primarily exposed through drinking water.  They could aslo be exposed during and after applications as the result of drift of the pesticide on air currents or from pesticide deposited in soil.

Health Effects

Immediate Health Effects
Longterm or Delayed Health Effects
Other

 

How Exposures Occur

Drinking Water
Pesticide Application and Drift
Soil
Occupational
House Dust
Food

 

Significant Statistics

Atrazine is one of the most widely used herbicide in the U.S.  Between 74-80 million pounds of atrazine (active ingredient) are used each year in the U.S.

Pesticide Industry Sales and Usage: 200-2001 Market Estimates. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances, May 2004.http://www.epa.gov/oppbead1/pestsales/index.htm

Atrazine is removed from air mainly by rainfall, and can be blown on dust particles long distances from where it is applied. Atrazine has been found in rainwater more than 180 miles from the nearest application area.

Public Health Statement for Atrazine. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, September 2003.http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/phs153.html

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has identified 200 community water systems where atrazine has been detected at levels that approached or exceeded the agency’s Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL). Of the 200, eight community water systems have annual average readings that significantly exceed the MCL.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Atrazine Interim Reregistration Eligibility Decision (IRED) Q&A’s. January 2003.http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/factsheets/atrazine.htm#q1

In 1995, more than 80 percent of atrazine applications—nearly 54 million pounds—were applied to U.S. corn crops. 

Atrazine Estimated Annual Agricultural Use. U.S. Geological Survey.http://ca.water.usgs.gov/pnsp/use92/atrazin.html

 

Solutions

How to detect atrazine

How to minimize exposure to atrazine

Alternatives

 

For More information

Books, articles, factsheets and reports

Fagin, Dan, Marianne Lavelle, and the Center for Public Integrity. Toxic Deception: How the Chemical Industry Manipulates Science, Bends the Law, and Endangers Your Health. Secaucus, New Jersey: Birch Lane Press, 1996.

Johnson, David. Weed Management for the Lawn and Garden. Washington Toxics Coalition, May 2000.

http://www.watoxics.org/pages/root.aspx?fromMenu=-1&pos=4|0|14

Cox, Caroline. “Managing Weeds at Home and in Our Communities,” Journal of Pesticide Reform, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Spring 1997).

http://www.pesticide.org/managing.pdf

Other government agencies

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Office of Pesticide Programs
Ariel Rios Building
1200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20460

http://www.epa.gov/pesticides

National Pesticide Information Center

Oregon State University
333 Weniger Hall
Corvallis, OR 97331-6502
800-858-7378

http://npic.orst.edu/

Nonprofit organizations

Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides (NCAP)

P.O. Box 1393
Eugene, OR 97440
541-344-5044

http://www.pesticide.org

Natural Resources Defense Council

40 West 20th Street
New York, NY 10011
212-727-2700

http://www.nrdc.org

Other websites

Our Stolen Future

http://www.ourstolenfuture.org

Pesticide Action Network Pesticide Advisor

http://www.panna.org/resources/advisor.dv.html