[Pharmwaste] Study probes septic system - cancer link

[Tenace, Laurie]

http://www2.townonline.com/bourne/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=556448
Study probes septic system- cancer link
By Bill Fonda/ bfonda at cnc.com
Thursday, August 17, 2006 

When people on the Cape talk about water quality and septic systems, it
usually has to do with nitrogen - where it comes from and how to remove it.
 
    Yet a new study from the Silent Spring Institute based on a Cape Cod
septic system focuses on other pollutants migrating into groundwater.
 
    The study, to be published in the Aug. 15 edition of the journal
Environmental Science & Technology, reports of finding hormone-disrupting
chemicals such as natural estrogen that is excreted in urine,
pharmaceuticals, chemicals from detergents and caffeine in the groundwater.
 

    According to the study, more than 85 percent of homes and businesses on
Cape Cod are served by septic systems, with the effluent discharged flowing
into a single aquifer that is the lone source of drinking water.
 
    "This exposure to natural estrogen adds to a woman's lifetime exposure to
estrogen, and may increase the risk of breast cancer," said Cheryl Osimo,
Cape Cod coordinator for Silent Spring Institute, a research organization
which studies the environment's effect on women's health, with an emphasis on
breast cancer.
 
    However, establishing any link with human health could be a ways off.
 
    "We're laying the groundwork for this kind of research," Osimo said.
"This is the first data published on these kinds of chemicals."
 
    Researchers, led by SSI and Stockholm Environment Institute senior
scientist Christopher Swartz, collected groundwater samples from a 2.3-acre
site on Cape Cod - Swartz said he could not name either the site itself or
the town - consisting of a house and four cottages served by a septic tank of
approximately 7,600 liters.
 
    The samples were collected from monitoring wells at increased distances
from the septic tank. Swartz said one of the estrogens, estrone, was found at
the farthest point, 25 feet away, at levels close to those in which male fish
downstream from wastewater treatment plants have taken on feminine
characteristics.
 
    "They produced a protein only females should be producing," he said.
 
    Right now, Swartz said the paper's recommendation is to realize how
efficient septic systems are and ways to make them better.
 
    "It's important to understand just what they are and are not taking out
of the wastewater flow," he said.
 
    Going forward, Swartz said "more careful research needs to be done, more
careful research," about the potential effects on humans.
 
    "We can't say a lot about human impacts from these low levels," he said.
"Science is arguing among themselves, 'Should we expect these type of
effects?'"


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 at dep.state.fl.us  
 
view our mercury web pages at: 
http://www.dep.state.fl.us/waste/categories/mercury/default.htm 

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