Groups Sue EPA Over Cancer-Linked Atrazine Pollution in U.S. Waterways

Conservation and public health groups filed a formal notice with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin on Thursday, May 30, 2026, to force the agency to develop water-quality standards for atrazine, a cancer-linked pesticide found at dangerous levels in thousands of U.S. waterways and drinking-water supplies.

The notice comes ten days after the Trump U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released its finalized review concluding that atrazine does not pose an extinction risk to any threatened or endangered species, contradicting the EPA's 2021 finding that widespread atrazine pollution harms over 1,000 threatened and endangered species.

Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity, stated, "The Trump administration has failed to do anything to adequately protect our families and most endangered wildlife from the dangers of cancer-linked and hormone-disrupting pesticides, like atrazine." He added that it is appalling the U.S. lags behind the rest of the world in banning this pesticide.

The Clean Water Act requires the EPA to develop water-quality criteria for pollutants such as atrazine, a step initiated in 1999 but never completed.

The legal notice, filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, Center for Environmental Health, and Pesticide Action & Agroecology Network, is a prerequisite for a future lawsuit. Atrazine pollution results from tens of millions of pounds of the pesticide used annually by industrial agricultural operations in the U.S.

Banned in over 60 countries due to its dangers, atrazine is the second most widely used pesticide in the U.S. It is linked to birth defects, multiple cancers, and fertility problems.

In 2025, the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer classified atrazine as "probably carcinogenic to humans."

Tom Fox, senior legislative counsel at the Center for Environmental Health, emphasized, "Atrazine is polluting waterways throughout the United States at unsafe levels leading to health risks like cancer and birth defects." The health harms of atrazine and glyphosate were highlighted in the Trump administration's first Make America Healthy Again report. Emily Marquez, a senior scientist at Pesticide Action & Agroecology Network, said, "The science is clear that atrazine is a threat to public health in America, especially farmworkers and agricultural communities."

The EPA had previously proposed steps to reduce atrazine contamination in 11,249 U.S. watersheds where levels exceed safety thresholds.

A 2025 Center analysis found the EPA's plan would bring only 1% of those watersheds below harmful levels, leaving about one-eighth of the continental U.S. landmass polluted.

This follows a petition to the Trump administration to ban atrazine. President Trump has stated that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F.

Kennedy Jr. is "looking into [pesticides] very seriously because maybe it's not necessary to use all of that." Kennedy has often called for a ban on atrazine.

Recent data shows atrazine has saturated much of the country at levels the EPA recognizes as harmful to wildlife. Atrazine is primarily used on corn grown for animal feed and ethanol.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports ethanol production accounts for nearly 45% of total corn use, 40% for livestock feed, and the remainder processed into ingredients for ultra-processed foods.