The Environmental Working Group (EWG) just issued a new report titled Tough to Swallow: How Pesticide Companies Profit from Poisoning America's Tap Water—the latest in a string of EWG reports attempting to induce public hysteria because pesticide residues are found in drinking water.
In the appropriately-named Tough To Swallow, EWG raves about levels of weed-controlling herbicides in the drinking water of numerous Midwestern communities—levels EWG claims violate the safety requirements of the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996.
But (not surprisingly) EWG is all wet.
First, and as pointed out by the Ohio EPA, EWG used the wrong safety standards. In the case of the herbicide atrazine, EWG used a safety standard of 0.15 parts per billion. But the existing atrazine safety standard is 3 parts per billion.
Second, and most importantly, even accepting EWG's claim that Midwestern drinking water is "contaminated" with herbicides, where's the harm? After all, herbicides have been used in the U.S. for more than 50 years. But no actual health effects ever have been linked with legal herbicide use. None. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada.
In the end, Tough to Swallow is just more evidence the "W" in "EWG" really stands for "Wacko!"
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