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Iowa community sues atrazine maker for contaminated water
The City of Creston, along with 15 other communities in six Midwestern states, has filed a lawsuit in federal court against the maker of atrazine to force the company to pay for the chemical's removal from local drinking water.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, alleges that Swiss corporation Syngenta AG and its Delaware-based subsidiary, Syngenta Crop Protection Inc., made billions in profit from the sale of atrazine while local taxpayers were left with the financial burden of filtering the chemical from drinking water.
Atrazine is a common agricultural herbicide in the United States but is banned in Europe because of its potentially dangerous effects, including interfering with the body's hormonal activity and the development of reproductive organs.The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has consistently maintained that the concentrations of atrazine measured in drinking water do not endanger public health.