[Pharmwaste] Pottstown Mercury article

[Tenace, Laurie]

I can't find the rest of this article - maybe someone else can and post =
it.

http://www.adquest3d.com/da/content.cfm?catid=3D0&brd=3D1674&pag=3D778&di=
splayadid=3D
1153531&parentid=3D1153528


It sounds like the opening line bad joke: "Have you heard the about the =
boy
fish born with sister's ovaries?"

But the stuff found in America's streams, and the effect that stuff is =
having
on the animals that depend on those streams - humans included - is no
laughing matter.=20

The problem goes way beyond fish.=20

A study by West Virginia University pointed to male alligators that =
failed to
develop mature sex organs, male panthers with almost no testosterone and =
male
tadpoles with ovaries.=20

In addition to the dirt, the manure, the pesticides, the petrochemicals =
and
the plain old trash that gets washed into our waterways when it rains,
consider the lengthy and terrifying list of poisons we knowingly put =
into our
nation's drinking water.=20

First of all is the human biological waste, and the parasites, microbes =
and
viruses that go with there's the alphabet soup of chemicals - DDT, DDE, =
PCB,
MTBE and TCE.=20

There are the chemicals with mysterious-sounding names and even more
mysterious side-effects, things like toxaphene, kepone, dioxin and
perchlorate.=20

And more recently, scientists have begun to wonder about the cumulative
effect of all the medicine we ingest and flush down the toilet.=20

This brings us back to our fish with the sexual identity problem.=20

An abundance of hormones=20

Last November, a study downstream of sewage treatment plants in three
Colorado rivers found an alarming number of male white suckers=20

(See WASTEWATER on A3)=20


Laurie J. Tenace
Environmental Specialist
Florida Department of Environmental Protection
2600 Blair Stone Road, MS 4555
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-2400
PH: (850) 245-8759
FAX: (850) 245-8811
Laurie.Tenace@dep.state.fl.us
=20
view our mercury web pages at:=20
http://www.dep.state.fl.us/waste/categories/mercury/default.htm
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