BOGOTA, June 4 (Reuter) Herbicides used in Colombia's U.S.sponsored drug
eradication efforts may pose a serious threat to the environment, a leading
Colombian antidrug expert said on Wednesday.

"There is a high risk in aerial spraying," said Luis Eduardo Parra, senior
researcher at Colombia's National Drug Council. "There is a risk to those who
may be exposed on the ground. There is a risk of contamination of our
rivers."

Parra spoke during a satellite conference with Jamaican environmentalists and
herbicide experts from the U.S.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

U.S. officials said chemicals like glyphosate used in Colombian drug crop
eradication efforts had undergone strenous environmental testing and are in
use in the United States.

"We consider the risk to people and the environment to be extremely low," EPA
Assistant Director of Field Operations Jay Ellenberger said.

But Parra said the herbicides had been tested and approved for use in the
United States, whereas heavy rains in the Amazon region could wash them into
nearby rivers and lakes.

But he called fumigation of illegal coca and poppy plants, the raw material
for cocaine and heroin production, a necessary evil compared with the
environmental damage caused by drug traffickers.

Drug manufacturers use highly toxic herbicides such as DDT, banned in the
United States, to clear sections of the Amazon and Andes to make way for
illicit drug plantations.

Chemicals used in the cocaine manufacturing process have significantly
contaminated Colombian rivers, Parra said.

Colombia manufactures 80 percent of the world's cocaine and is the chief
supplier of highgrade heroin to the United States. Last year joint
U.S.Colombian antidrug forces fumigated more than 60,000 acres (25,000
hectares) of clandestine plantations the most ambitious drug crop spraying
program in Latin America.