Pressure mounting for pesticides review

Dr Alison Bleaney Break O’Day catchment risk group
PRESSURE is mounting on the Federal and State Governments to review the use of herbicides and insecticides in drinking water catchment areas.

This follows a call by the Tasmanian Primary Industries Minister, David Llewellyn, for reforms in the use of agricultural chemicals and concerns raised by the Tasmanian Director of Public Health, Dr Roscoe Taylor, about the health risks from ongoing spraying of triazines in drinking water catchments.

The Secretary of the Break O’Day Catchment Risk Group, Dr Alison Bleaney, supported the call for reform and urged the Federal Government and other States to require the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) to conduct an urgent review of the use of pesticides in agriculture and forestry.

“This is a national problem and it requires a national solution”, Dr Bleaney said.

“Run off from chemical sprays is contaminating waterways in every State, and eventually some of it ends up in drinking water.

Under Australian Government law, APVMA is effectively responsible for approving the use of individual pesticides although each State retains responsibility for regulating the way they are used.

“The States have traditionally deferred to the APVMA to decide whether a pesticide is safe to use”, Dr Bleaney said.

“In reality, this means that issues of product safety are squarely in the APVMA’s court.

“The use of triazines is banned throughout Europe but the APVMA is still allowing them to be used in Australia.

“Many pesticides, including the triazines, have been linked to serious health problems in both animals and humans, including harm to their reproductive, hormonal and nervous systems

“In Tasmania there is an additional concern – it has now been now confirmed that triazines persist in the environment for twice as long in cooler climates like ours’, Dr Bleaney said.

“I am delighted with the reports that Tasmania has now taken a lead by formally requesting the APVMA to review the use of triazines due to their persistence in drinking water catchment areas.

“Hopefully the international evidence collected in recent years will allow a reasonably rapid review – certainly more rapid than APVMA’s last review of atrazine, which took about eleven years.

“Triazines are already banned from use in the Macquarie River catchment, and that ban should now be extended to all water catchments in the State.

“In the meantime, the Tasmanian Government should speed up its current review of aerial spraying of these dangerous chemicals, which has already been underway since 2005.”

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GREENS TO MOVE ON TRIAZINE BAN
No Excuse for Further Delays
Tim Morris MP
Greens Water spokesperson
Monday, 13 April 2009

www.tas.greens.org.au
The Tasmanian Greens today said that if the Bartlett government does not move to ban immediately the use of the triazine herbicides in Tasmania that they would then move to do so when Parliament resumes.

Greens Water spokesperson Tim Morris MP, who described the chemicals as ‘dangerous carcinogens’ said that the writing has been on the wall for the triazines for some time given community, health and environmental concerns, and that there was no excuse for Labor to continue to delay taking the necessary action.

“The government’s own research has confirmed that these chemicals remain in the environment twice as long in cooler environments than previously acknowledged, so it is quite clear that they have no place in Tasmania,“ Mr Morris said.

“If Labor continues to delay taking the necessary action to protect our waterways, our communities and the environment, then the Greens will move in the Parliament for an immediate ban on the triazine herbicides.”

“Forestry Tasmania has already ceased using Atrazine, however Simazine is still being used and appearing far too often in our waterways, so the next logical step is to stop using the triazines all together and instead focus on alternative weed control methods.”

“Alarmingly two more triazines, Cyanazine and Hexazinone, have also been tested for and a trace of Hexazinone found, in the Derwent River, above the Hobart water supply intake on the 20 March following the detection of Atrazine in the Clyde River last October and yet the cases have been closed with no public explanation.”

“Decisive action rather than more reviews and more hand-wringing is needed by David Llewellyn, as Labor has a poor track record when it comes to putting the community’s best interests before commercial interests, especially in the forestry sector, and this is a good opportunity for them to turn that around.”

“If the Bartlett government is truly data-driven and determined to be ‘kind and connected’ then it simply needs to stop any more of these triazines entering our environment and people’s water supplies,” Mr Morris said.