WASHINGTON— The Center for Biological Diversity sent a comprehensive analysis to the Trump administration today detailing how a Biden-era plan would greenlight extremely harmful levels of atrazine pollution in 99% of the nation’s 11,249 contaminated watersheds.

Because of the long-lasting harms caused by the endocrine-disrupting, cancer-linked pesticide, the Center is asking new Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin for a national ban on atrazine as part of President Trump’s pledge to make America healthy again.

“President Trump has an early opportunity to make good on his pledge to make America healthy again by cleaning up our nation’s water with a ban on atrazine,” said Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center. “The failure, for the past 30 years, of both Democrat and Republican administrations to get rid of this dangerous pesticide gives President Trump and Administrator Zeldin a chance to create a sweeping, signature environmental achievement that will benefit generations of Americans.”

The Center analysis of data from the EPA, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and pesticide industry found that the Biden proposal would allow harmful levels of atrazine in more than 11,000 U.S. watersheds, which encompass about one-eighth of the entire landmass of the continental United States: roughly 250 million acres.

The analysis found that the plan is predicted to permit dangerous levels of the pesticide in roughly 95% of contaminated waterways in Delaware, Maryland and Virginia, many of which drain into the Chesapeake Bay.

The greatest pollution from atrazine runoff is in the Midwest, including Illinois, where 88% of all watersheds are predicted to contain harmful levels of the pesticide, and Iowa, where 84% of watersheds are predicted to be polluted with harmful atrazine levels. The Biden plan would recover less than 1% of those contaminated watersheds to levels that meet the atrazine water-quality threshold of 9.7 parts per billion.

Atrazine, which is banned in 60 countries, is the second most widely used pesticide in the United States and one of the nation’s most controversial and widespread pesticide water contaminants. It is a known hormone-disrupting pesticide linked to birth defects, multiple cancers, and fertility problems like low sperm quality and irregular menstrual cycles.

Since his election President Trump has criticized the “industrial food complex” and agribusiness and has pledged that his administration will ensure that everyone is protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants and pesticides.

He promised that Zeldin would deliver “the cleanest air and water on the planet.”

The Center’s analysis finds that the Biden plan will only result in 123 of the 11,249 atrazine-polluted watersheds (1%) dropping below the level of contamination the EPA recognizes to harm wildlife. Lakes, rivers and streams in these watersheds provide drinking water for millions of Americans.

The Center’s analysis also finds that following implementation of the EPA’s atrazine proposal, 70% of atrazine-impaired waterways would still have predicted concentrations twice as high as the level EPA recognizes to significantly harm wildlife and 30% would have predicted atrazine concentrations five times higher than that threshold.

“A 99% failure rate is unacceptable in any context but horrific when we’re talking about an extraordinarily toxic pesticide contaminating the drinking water of millions of Americans,” said Donley. “If President Trump wants to show the public we’re going to see a huge course correction on American health, atrazine is the first step.”

The EPA’s proposal is currently open for public comment until April 4.