[Pharmwaste] Traces of Rx Drugs Found in Southland Aquifers - CA

Tenace, Laurie Laurie.Tenace at dep.state.fl.us
Mon Jan 30 09:19:43 EST 2006


http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-drugs30jan30,0,5723467.story

Traces of Prescription Drugs Found in Southland Aquifers
Various medications are detected in drinking water that has been derived from
treated sewage. The health risk, if any, is unknown.

By Marla Cone, Times Staff Writer


Behind a tangle of willows, every second of every day for almost half a
century, recycled sewage has gushed into an El Monte creek and nourished one
of Los Angeles County's most precious resources: the drinking water stored
beneath the San Gabriel Valley.


Cleansed so thoroughly that it is considered pure enough to drink, this flow
from the Whittier Narrows reclamation plant meets all government standards.
Yet county officials now report that they have found some potent - and until
recent months undetected - ingredients in the treated waste: prescription
drugs.
  
As new technology enables detection of infinitesimally smaller doses of
chemicals in the environment, Southern California water-quality officials
have learned that an array of hardy pharmaceuticals are defying even the most
sophisticated sewage treatments in use.

Around the world, waterways and groundwater basins are virtual drugstores,
awash in low doses of hundreds of prescription drugs excreted by people and
flushed down drains.

Wherever there is sewage, there are traces of whatever pills people have
popped: antibiotics and antipsychotics, birth-control hormones and beta
blockers, Viagra and Valium.

"There is no place on Earth exempted from having pharmaceuticals and steroids
in its wastewater," said Shane Snyder, head toxicologist at Las Vegas' water
provider, the Southern Nevada Water Authority, and one of the nation's
leading experts on pharmaceuticals in water. "This is clearly an issue that
is global, and we're going to see more and more of these chemicals in the
environment; no doubt about it."

Locally, small amounts of medicines for depression, seizures, high
cholesterol, anxiety, infections, inflammation and pain - among other
ailments - have been detected in the wastewater that flows into California
streams and seeps into drinking-water aquifers. The contamination raises
questions about the safety of reclaimed water consumed by the public and the
health of wild creatures that inhabit waterways.

The concentrations are so minuscule - in parts per trillion, or a few drops
in an Olympic-sized swimming pool - that scientists suspect there is little
or no human danger. They acknowledge, however, that no one knows the effects
of ingesting tiny doses of multiple drugs continuously over a lifetime.

So far, concerns have focused mostly on the ecological threat. Biologists
studying frogs on Prozac, insects dosed with anti-seizure drugs, algae killed
by antibiotics and fish feminized by birth-control pills have discovered that
some streams contain pharmaceuticals and synthetic estrogen at levels harmful
to aquatic life.

"All the data we have compiled indicates these concentrations are trivial to
public health. Even putting massive safety factors on this, it still wouldn't
have a [human] impact," Snyder said. "Now for wastewater - that's a different
story. When you have a fish or endangered species that is exposed 24 hours a
day, we do need to look at this."

With thousands of varieties of prescription and over-the-counter drugs being
sold, there are no government standards restricting any of them in drinking
water or in effluent released into streams or lakes.

Water and sewage agencies aren't even required to look for them - and most
don't. Testing of drinking water for drugs has been so infrequent that no one
knows how much people are ingesting. A national association of wastewater
agencies warned in November that pharmaceuticals are a "potential sleeping
giant."

Los Angeles and Orange counties are among the world's leaders in recycling
sewage to replenish water supplies, and officials there worry that the
public's perception of the water supply will be tainted.

The Whittier Narrows plant, which has operated in El Monte since 1962, was
the nation's first reclamation plant. Since then, nearly half a trillion
gallons of treated sewage from Whittier Narrows and two other county plants
have replenished the Central Basin aquifer beneath the San Gabriel Valley,
which supplies water to 4 million people.

Sewage in Southern California undergoes some of the world's most rigorous
cleansing - tertiary treatment - to protect rivers and streams from bacteria
and nitrogen. Much of the wastewater then is routed into aquifers, where it
remains for at least six months so soil can filter out more contaminants
before potable water is pumped.

In November, the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts reported at a
scientific conference that they found high levels of ibuprofen, naproxen and
acetaminophen in raw sewage coming into its Whittier Narrows plant, and very
small concentrations going out.

In waste that had undergone treatment, the antibiotic sulfamethoxazole and
anti-cholesterol medication gemfibrozil were found at fairly high levels of
around one part per billion. The antidepressant fluoxetine, the arthritis
drug diclofenac, anti-anxiety and anti-seizure drugs, three more antibiotics
and others were detected at lower levels, in parts per trillion. Estrogens
also were measured in low levels.

Similar findings from two Los Angeles County reclamation plants will be
published later this year by Jorg Drewes, an assistant professor of
environmental science and engineering at the Colorado School of Mines.

Robert Horvath, the districts' technical services director, said tiny doses
of over-the-counter drugs aren't that worrisome, but other less common
medications can amount to an involuntary though "extremely low" public
exposure. The agency, which operates 10 reclamation plants, is one of a few
with the ability to test for pharmaceuticals.

"It's such a large list of compounds that even the testing is a lot of work -
just teasing out which ones are important. So far, we have no [federal or
state] goals to shoot for," Horvath said.

Orange County is spending $500 million to build the world's most advanced
sewage-recycling plant. When operating in 2007, it is expected to bring
pharmaceuticals and other contaminants to undetectable levels.

Christian Daughton, chief of environmental chemistry at the EPA's National
Exposure Research Laboratory branch in Las Vegas, has said that drugs rival
pesticides but unlike such conventional pollutants, they are unregulated and
flow continuously into waterways from sewage treatment plants. The U.S.
Geological Survey found one or more pharmaceuticals in 80% of 139 streams
tested in 2002.

In a 1999 report, Daughton warned that medications "could lead to cumulative,
insidious, adverse impacts" on aquatic ecosystems - such as declining
reproduction and survival rates - that "can accumulate over time to
ultimately yield truly profound changes," even in protected areas such as
national parks.

Fish, frogs and other creatures live, feed and breed in waterways - exposed
to the drugs from birth to death.

Collecting carp and other fish in a Dallas stream fed by treated sewage,
Baylor University toxicologist Bryan Brooks found fluoxetine, an ingredient
of Prozac and other antidepressants, in all fish sampled.

In laboratory frogs, Prozac slows growth and metamorphosis, leaving tadpoles
more vulnerable to predation, according to research by University of Georgia
ecotoxicologist Marsha Black. In fish, it causes lethargy and delays
reproduction, and in crustaceans and shellfish, reproductive rates drop.

The most striking discovery is feminized fish. Male fish in British rivers,
Nevada's Lake Mead, the Potomac River and elsewhere are growing female
ovarian tissues from continuous exposure to birth-control estrogens and
natural hormone excretions in treated sewage.

Many popular medications, such as acetaminophen and ibuprofen, are eliminated
during sewage treatment. But some pass out of the plants unaltered and are
released into streams, oceans and groundwater basins.

"Most pharmaceuticals are designed to be tough because they have to get
through your body to have a therapeutic effect," said Margaret Nellor, an
environmental consultant who specializes in reclaimed water.

Two widely used anti-epileptic medications - carbamazepine and primidone -
survive not only Arizona's advanced, tertiary treatment but also filtration
through aquifers' soil. Even after eight years underground, they still
contaminate well water used to irrigate parks in Mesa and Tucson, Drewes
said.

Yet experts suspect that the millions of Americans who drink reclaimed water
- which includes virtually everyone in Los Angeles County - would experience
no effects.

Drugs in wastewater are detected in nanograms though they usually are
administered by doctors in milligrams, a unit 1 million times larger.

"People would have to drink the water for many hundreds of years to get a
dose of a pharmaceutical equivalent to therapy," said Drewes.

Still, the public exposure is widespread, and some drugs share a common mode
of action. When combined, they could lead to significant exposure.

Because some pills are intentionally flushed down toilets, Los Angeles and
Orange counties will begin distributing cards to pharmacies in March advising
customers to take unwanted drugs to hazardous waste roundups or wrap them and
put them in the trash.

Water agencies predict that soon they will have to tackle this new generation
of contaminants. The EPA is likely to add a few pharmaceuticals to a new
candidates list, which could initiate monitoring of water in 2008.

In the meantime, the newest technology can detect chemicals in parts per
quintillion - equivalent to one tablespoon in the Mississippi River.

"The analytical capability has really, really outstripped our ability to
understand what it means," said Michael Wehner of the Orange County Water
District, which taps a basin replenished by the Santa Ana River, composed
almost entirely of treated sewage.


"There's a question of which pharmaceuticals may be persistent in the
environment, which have the greatest potential for adverse effects," he said.
"The information is still sketchy compared to the traditional contaminants.
There's some good work going on to help us get a handle on it, but it's still
early."

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Drugs in the environment

Tests of raw and treated sewage at Los Angeles County's Whittier Narrows
Reclamation Plant show that some pharmaceuticals are resistant even to
advanced treatment and are released into the San Gabriel Valley's groundwater
basin in ultra-low levels.

Drugs in sewage and in treated water(Parts per trillion)  
[the table formatting is lost, but the first number is "entering plant"
second number is  "Discharged into groundwater" - Laurie]  

Estrogens (female sex hormones) 69.6 4.6  
Triclosan (antibiotic) 610-667 51-74  
Acetaminophen (analgesic) 20,300-35,200 under 10  
Naproxen (analgesic) 3,780-5,100 35-74  
Ibuprofen (analgesic) 4,720-6,630 43-52  
Hydrocodone (pain killer) 31-52 34-50  
Sulfamethoxazole (antiobiotic) 320-882 742-919  
Meprobamate (anti-anxiety) 194-241 219-294  
Dilantin (anti-convulsant) 39-48 98-120  
Carbamazepine (anti-seizure, analgesic) 58-95 93-133  
Diclofenac (arthritis) 22-30 40-63  
Trimethoprim (antibiotic) 178-591 231-337  
Erythromycin (antibiotic) 205-299 419-517  
Gemfibrozil (anti-cholesterol) 2,300-3,020 733-1,110  
Fluoxetine (anti-depressant) under 10 13-18 
*The tests of the incoming sewage and the outgoing waste were made at
different times, which explains why some effluent is more contaminated than
the incoming waste.

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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