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It’s great at killing pesky weeds, but does the country’s herbicide pose a risk to human and environmental health?

It’s hard to say.

Despite federal and state safety limits on how much glyphosate can be in waterways, soil and in the residue of fruits and vegetables, regulatory agencies rarely, if ever, test for the chemical.

But some members of Hawaii’s hope to change that. The advisory arm of of the state’s Office of Environmental Quality Control is proposing mandatory sampling of, and studies on, glyphosate.

This comes at something of a high-water mark for an alliance of groups and individuals who are battling the biotech industry on Kauai.

Glyphosate was patented in the 1970s by the biotech company Monsanto and it is most commonly known by the trade name Roundup. When Monsanto’s patent expired in 2000, the active ingredient was mixed into numerous other herbicides that then hit the market.

Mark Ambler, a member of the Environmental Council, recommended earlier this month that the state Department of Health start testing for glyphosate in food residue and that the Department of Agriculture sample waterways and soil.

The full council is expected to vote on November 21 on the measures, which are purely advisory. But the recommendations have the potential to place pressure on state agencies to pay more attention to glyphosate, or to encourage the Legislature to take up the issue this session to back the recommendations with the force of law.

Glyphosate is widely considered to be safer than other chemicals on the market, according to information from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and thus it hasn’t received priority attention from regulators or testers when it comes to chemical residues in food.

In fact, while the federal agriculture department regularly tests food for more than 170 pesticide residues, it doesn’t screen for glyphosate even though federal statistics highlight its remarkably frequent use.

(Pesticides is the umbrella term to describe a range of chemical agents that kill pests, including herbicides, which target plants, and insecticides, which target insects.)

Ambler argues that it doesn’t make sense to establish safety limits for glyphosate and then not test to see if those limits are being exceeded.

“The Environmental Protection Agency does have limits set that are based on risks to human health,” Ambler said. “So I think, in my opinion, that is where the disconnect is.”

Long-term exposure to glyphosate above safe levels is known to cause kidney damage and harm reproductive health, according to . Scientists say that it remains unclear whether lifetime exposure to glyphosate increases the risk of cancer, according to the agency.

The chemical has been the subject of international debate. A 2011 report by European scientists covered up glyphosate’s potential to cause birth defects.

A Monsanto toxicologist said by email that the report misrepresented scientific studies on glyphosate and that it has not been linked to birth defects.

“Regulatory agencies around the world and the World Health Organization have concluded that glyphosate is not a reproductive toxin or teratogen (cause of birth defects) based on in-depth review of the comprehensive data sets available,” wrote Donna Farmer, whose title at Monsanto is chemistry stewardship lead.

There’s no doubt that glyphosate, like all chemicals designed to kill plants or animals, can be toxic. But that alone doesn’t mean it can’t be used safely. Ambler said that studies on whether the chemical is harming coastal reefs or even seeping into drinking water supplies just haven’t been done.

A primary concern has to do with whether glyphosate is getting into coastal waters through runoff. The chemical is extremely toxic to aquatic plants and green algae, which is essential to the survival of coral, Ambler said.

Historically, Hawaii hasn’t tested for glyphosate residue on produce, in part, because it wasn’t being sprayed on fruits and vegetables, said Peter Oshiro, environment health program manager at the state health department. He explained that is changing with the arrival of products like Monsanto’s Roundup Ready crops. Glyphosate can be sprayed on the whole crop to control weeds, without hurting the genetically strengthened produce.

“In today’s GMO world, farmers are now applying herbicides to their herbicide-resistant crops to increase profits by drastically reducing labor costs for weed eradication in their fields, and optimizing fertilizer use by feeding only the cash crop and not the weeds,” Oshiro said by email.

Still, Oshiro said that testing for glyphosate is probably not cost effective based on its risk assessment.

Glyphosate testing is uncommonly expensive. For instance, testing for the chemical residue on soybeans costs about $750 per sample, according to the USDA. By comparison, it costs just $10 to test soybeans for other pesticides.

However, it may be more sensible to test for the chemical in the environment, which Oshiro said is probably the more pressing concern.

Ambler said it costs about $250 to test for glyphosate in water and $450 to test for it in the soil, according to lab quotes. But that doesn’t include the costs of collecting the samples.

He hopes that funding for glyphosate studies will come from private industry. Under his recommendations, the agriculture department would immediately raise fees on pesticide licenses to cover the costs of regulation.

Ambler’s presentation to the Environmental Council: