Oklahoma Farm Bureau Legal Foundation

January 01, 2006
Intervention in NRDC case against EPA

On March 24, 2006, the District Court in Maryland entered an order approving the settlement in the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) atrazine Endangered Species Act case. OFB joined in an action with several other state Farm Bureaus and commodity organizations to intervene in a lawsuit brought by the NRDC which sought an injunction against the EPA to ban the use of atrazine. Syngenta, the maker of atrazine intervened in a separate action.

Although atrazine has been registered for use for decades, the NRDC filed a lawsuit in 2003 alleging that the EPA violated the Endangered Species Act by failing to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) or the National Marine Fisheries Service on the effects of the atrazine registration and use on 21 different threatened and endangered species across approximately two-thirds of the United States.

Atrazine is the most widely used herbicide in the United States. If atrazine use is prohibited, economic losses due to decreased yields for U.S. corn producers are estimated to be $924 million.

Prior consultations conducted by the Service in the 1980s for species that were listed at that time showed that atrazine had no effect on many of the species included in the lawsuit.

During the course of the lawsuit, the court denied NRDC's request that the court should rule whether atrazine "may affect" endangered species. Instead the court determined that EPA, not the court, must be the body to make that decision.

In settling the case, NRDC gave up on its argument that the court should enjoin atrazine use. The only thing that EPA is required to do under the settlement is what it was going to do anyway: make an assessment of atrazine's effects on endangered species within two years (by August 31, 2007).

The species listed in the lawsuit were: the loggerhead sea turtle, leatherback sea turtle, green turtle, Kemp's Ridley turtle, shortnose sturgeon, dwarf wedge mussel, pallid sturgeon, Topeka shiner, purple cat's paw pearly mussel, northern riffleshell, Barton Spring's salamander, Alabama sturgeon, fat pocketbook pearly mussel, pink mucket pearly mussel, shiny pigtoe pearly mussel, fine-rayed pigtoe mussel, rough pigtoe mussel, heavy pigtoe mussel, stirrup shell mussel, ovate clubshell mussel and southern clubshell mussel.

Eight species will be evaluated by August 31, 2006, eight species will be evaluated by February 28, 2007, and five species will be evaluated by August 31, 2007. EPA will also provide NRDC with ongoing ecological water monitoring data as authorized under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act and NRDC may provide comments on effects determinations.