COMMON DREAMS– A coalition of communities in six Midwestern states filed a federal lawsuit Monday seeking to force the manufacturer of a widely-used herbicide to pay for its removal from drinking water.

Atrazine, a weed-killer sprayed primarily on cornfields, can run off into rivers and streams that supply municipal water systems. As the Huffington Post Investigative Fund reported in a  series of  articles last  fall, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency failed to notify the public that atrazine had been found at levels above the federal safety limit in drinking water in at least four states.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois by 16 cities in Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, and Iowa.  The communities allege that Swiss corporation Syngenta AG and its Delaware counterpart Syngenta Crop Protection, Inc. reaped billions of dollars from the sale of atrazine while local taxpayers were left with the financial burden of filtering the chemical from drinking water.

Many water utility managers  told the Investigative Fund that they could not afford the expensive carbon filters that are needed to remove atrazine.

Syngenta spokesman Paul Minehart told the Investigative Fund that the company had not yet received word of a federal action, but said that current levels of atrazine in drinking water are safe.

“What Syngenta can say is that EPA re-registered atrazine in 2006, stating it would cause no harm to the general population,” Minehart said. “In the current economy many organizations, including water systems, are looking for additional sources of revenue.  It is not surprising that some water systems would say they cannot afford additional filtering but, for atrazine, there is no need.”

Atrazine has long been a controversial product. The European Union in 2004 banned its use, saying there was not enough information to prove its safety. The EPA recently  announced that it would be re-evaluating the herbicide’s ability to cause cancer and birth defects, as well as its potential to disrupt the hormone and reproductive systems of humans and amphibians.

Last week, a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science  reported that male frogs exposed to levels of atrazine below federal limits could become functional females, with the ability to mate and lay eggs.

Citizens in all sixteen of the cities named in the lawsuit get their drinking water from sources next to or surrounded by agricultural fields where farmers use atrazine. Some of these cities sell their water in bulk to other nearby towns.

Lawyer Stephen Tillery, who is representing the sixteen cities in this complaint, said that these cities alone have spent upwards of $350 million trying to filter atrazine from their drinking water.

by Danielle Ivory

Investigative Fund reporter Danielle Ivory discussed atrazine last fall on the TV program Democracy Now. To watch, click here.

SF GATE– If you search for news and information about the oil spill on the internet, your first result will be a link to BP’s website that the tagline describes as “how BP is helping.” That’s because the company has purchased “oil spill” ad words through Google and Yahoo. “Oil spill” has been among the top searches on Google, Twitter and Yahoo for several weeks.

© COPYRIGHT SF GATE, 2010

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AL JAZEERA– A landmark trial is unfolding in Ecuadorian Amazon, where a group of rainforest residents is suing Texaco for $6bn in oil clean-up costs. Texaco, now part of Chevron, admits to dumping 18 billion gallons of run-off while drilling for oil in the rainforest, but the company says it did so legally and according to industry standards.

Environmentalists call it the worst oil-related disaster in the world – Texaco allegedly dumped 30 times the amount of crude spilled by the Exxon Valdez.

Al Jazeera’s Mariana Sanchez reports that the plaintiffs say the company left hundreds of dump sites, many of them unlined, and open-air pits that ooze toxic sludge into what was once pristine rainforest.

The Cofan, an indigenous nation of less than 500 men and women, say their land is contaminated and are filing a lawsuit against the giant oil company. Toribio Aguinda, one member of the Cofan tribe, remembers when the waters of the Aguarico river turned dark.

“The water stunk and so did our fish. In the end, we were left there, with sadness, thinking where will we get fresh water?”

These tribesmen are demanding a clean-up. They are part of the 30,000 plaintiffs who filed a class action lawsuit in New York in 1993 and lost the case. The case is now being tried in Ecuador.

In 2001 Chevron bought Texaco, taking over its assets and this legal battle.

“Texaco created a system where they dumped literally billions of gallons of toxic waste water”, said Steven Donziger, legal counsel.

Donziger, who represents the plaintiffs, says the dumping saved the company billions of dollars in operating costs.

“When you do this every day with 300 well sites in 28 years you have an ecological disaster and that’s what we are looking out today,” he said.

Meanwhile, Ricardo Reis Vega, Chevron’s legal counsel and vice president, argues the company cleaned up the areas under Chevron’s obligation.

“The part that was in our responsibility inside the scope of work was done 100 percent,” Vega said.

In 1995 the Ecuadorian government agreed to release the company from further responsibilities after they cleaned up. The Amazon Defence Front, also representing the 30,000 plaintiffs, says most of the damage has been left untouched. And the pollution, they say, is not biodegradable.

“This is how Texaco designed their pits and they are still working today. The pollutants come from a pool through a tube into the swamp and the swamp feeds the river from which the Cofan take their water.”

The American company says it spent $40m on remediation but that is only one per cent of the amount the Cofan’s lawyers estimate is needed for a real clean up.

By Mariana Sanchez

© COPYRIGHT AL JAZEERA, 2007

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