Quote:
Originally Posted by macgardener
Is there a reason why the EU's decision makes sense for their particular circumstances and Australia's situation is different? Or will this be another example of Australia simply lagging behind again?
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The short answer is that atrazine (and the other triazines) were banned in the EU because they couldn’t be kept out of groundwater. In some European countries groundwater is used for drinking. The EU brought in a rule for a trigger if any pesticide concentration in groundwater exceeded 0.1 micro g/L. The regulators were not satisfied that atrazine concentrations in groundwater would not exceed 0.1 micro g/L and so atrazine was not included on the register of allowable active ingredients. Simazine was the same.
http://ec.europa.eu/food/plant/prote...j_atrazine.pdf
http://ec.europa.eu/food/plant/prote...j_simazine.pdf
In Australia, groundwater is mostly mot used as drinking water, because it is not potable – too many salts. Instead the Australian regulator is concerned about atrazine in surface waters, like rivers, as this is the water used for drinking. In 1997, the then NRA changed the label for atrazine to reduce the risk of it appearing in water. Specifically, a label change prohibiting use within 60 m of lakes and dams was included and uses in waterways were prohibited. In addition, home garden registrations were cancelled.
http://www.apvma.gov.au/chemrev/down...finalMay08.pdf
The frog issue was assessed in the review, but the monitoring of atrazine in water resulted in a conclusion that atrazine was unlikely to have an adverse effect on frogs under current use patterns.