Tim Morris
THE Tasmanian Greens have called on the Minister for Water, Mr Llewellyn to introduce a total ban on the use of Atrazine and Simazine following national reports today that the Director of Public Health, Dr Roscoe Taylor, has suggested that the usages of these chemicals should be reviewed state-wide, a move that the Greens say is a highly significant and unprecedented development in Tasmania’s chemical poison debate.
DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC HEALTH’S CALL FOR STATEWIDE SIMAZINE & ATRAZINE REVIEW MUST BE HEEDED
Significant Development in Chemical Debate!
Tim Morris MP
Greens Shadow Water Spokesperson
Saturday, 17 May 2008
www.tas.greens.org.au
THE Tasmanian Greens have called on the Minister for Water, Mr Llewellyn to introduce a total ban on the use of Atrazine and Simazine following national reports today that the Director of Public Health, Dr Roscoe Taylor, has suggested that the usages of these chemicals should be reviewed state-wide, a move that the Greens say is a highly significant and unprecedented development in Tasmania’s chemical poison debate.
Greens Shadow Water spokesperson Tim Morris MP said that the Director also makes reference to evidence that indicates that these two triazine poisons persist longer in cool environments, which combined with the fact that there have been numerous occasions where the chemicals have been detected persistently in waterways around the state, makes a total statewide ban inevitable.
Dr Taylor’s comments in the Weekend Australian follow yesterday’s announcement that an operator, now confirmed to be Gunns, has been instructed to cease its usage of Atrazine and Simazine in the Macquarie River catchment, and also follows the release of international evidence that Atrazine impacts upon human tissue at a far lower dosage that previously thought, and at significantly lower detection levels than is currently legally allowable in Tasmania’s waterways.
“The unprecedented statements by Dr Taylor reported in the national media today, that the state-wide usage of Atrazine and Simazine should be ‘reconsidered’, is a significant development in Tasmania’s decade long struggle for agricultural chemical free waterways and drinking water,” Mr Morris said.
“The State government must heed this call and immediately implement a statewide ban, especially given Dr Taylor’s reference to evidence that these chemicals persist longer in the environment in cooler environments.”
“For decades now, the Greens and the community have been raising concerns about the presence of these dangerous chemicals in our rivers and drinking water supplies, and finally it appears that the severity of the problem is being recognised – in some quarters at least.”
Mr Morris also pointed to the fact that Dr Taylor is reported as saying that the persistence of these triazines in the environment is under investigation, and that Gunns have confirmed that they are reviewing their usage of them in their plantations, as serious grounds for usage of the chemicals to stop across all Tasmanian catchments.
“We reiterate our call that while there are state investigations, and industry reviews, of Atrazine and Simazine usage, there is no excuse for those chemicals to still be used in any of Tasmania’s catchments, not just the Macquarie River catchment.”
“The persistence of Simazine in the Macquarie River for over seven months, far longer than would normally be expected, following a single spraying event, prompted the Director of Public Health to require the operator to cease using the triazines in that catchment, yet this is not necessarily a one-off situation specific to that catchment.”
“I urge Dr Taylor to also look at the Simazine contamination events in the South Esk River in the Spring/Summer of 2005/06, and the Rubicon River in the Spring of 2006, where persistent contamination was detected over several months.”
“Dr Taylor is reported as saying that it is ‘three strikes and its out’ as far as he is concerned and he cited the persistent contamination of the Macquarie and Prosser rivers as his examples, whereas the Simazine contamination events in the South Esk and the Rubicon Rivers makes four strikes by my counting.”
“Only this week we have been provided with new scientific evidence that Atrazine is impacting on human tissue at far lower levels than demonstrated before, and at significantly lower levels than is legally allowable in water in Tasmania; it is now time for the government too make a decisive move an ban this group of chemicals.”
“The Greens welcome the current moves by government and industry in relation to the use of pesticides and herbicides in Tasmania, but still it is largely fiddling with the issue rather than taking decisive action to eliminate the ongoing contamination of waterways and non-target land,” Mr Morris said.
