[Pharmwaste] Contaminated Drinking Water on Cape Cod
Jim Mullowney
jmullowney at pharma-cycle.com
Tue Feb 9 10:33:07 EST 2016
The EPA has spent over a Billion dollars cleaning up the Otis Air Force
Base. They hired the US Geological Survey to verify what a great job they
were doing however there were a few major problems with the study
1. The USGS took all of the fish out of the Ashumet pond where one of the
plumes of waste from Otis went below, 62% of the fish had cancer
2. You can tell what caused the cancer by taking the same type of fish and
injecting it with the pollutants found at Otis such as TCE, PCB's etc. and
doing a blood cell assay and compare the cell damage to the tumor cells
found in the fish with cancer.
3. The blood cell assay did not match for anything EPA was cleaning up at
Otis so the USGS ran the Blood cell assay through a data base and found a
match for Cyclophosphamide.
4. The outcome of the study was that the fish have cancer from an ongoing
exposure to a genotoxic substance such as cyclophosphamide and recommended
further study.
5. The EPA canceled the study and told the Authors to call the FDA because
cyclophosphamide is a drug (I talked to the Authors)
6. Cyclophosphamide is the basis for treating Breast, Lung, Colon and Blood
cancers and is heavily excreted in the urine, we give a patient 4 grams of
the drug, fill them up like a balloon and send them home to their families
full of a US EPA hazardous waste U058 where 25% is excreted in the urine in
24 hours, that is 1000 parts per million, enough to kill a child through
absorption never mind the carcinogenic, mutanogenenic and teratogenic
effects.
7. The first metabolite of cyclophosphamide (U058) is Acrolein a P-listed
hazardous waste (P003)
8. It is a crime to put the empty container or anything that came in contact
with the drug in the trash. This is like taking a drum of PCB's, pouring it
down the toilet, slapping a label on the empty drum and telling everyone we
solved the problem. Here is the study
http://cytotoxicsafety.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/USGS-Fish-Tumors-Cape-
Cod.pdf
9 In 2014 the European Commission published a report on Medicines in the
environment, this study is 250 pages with 500 references. one of the
referenced study's rates the relative dangers of different medicines with
Cyclophosphamide being the most dangerous and birth control pills being the
least, there were 9 orders of magnitude in the risk factors. In simple terms
Chemotherapy drugs are a Billion times more dangerous than birth control
pills.
http://www.cytotoxicsafety.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Highlighted-EU-stu
dy_environment.pdf
10. We know what causes cancer, there is a list of known human carcinogens
and 10% of the things that are known to cause cancer are drugs that are used
to fight cancer.
11. Cape Cod is not unlike much of the US and the world.
12. Drugs are chemicals too and some chemicals should not be dumped in to
our water especially cytotoxic chemotherapy drugs, this is an interesting
article from Dr. Christian Daughton stating the need to stop putting some
drugs down our sewer systems.
http://www.cytotoxicsafety.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Eco-directed-susta
inable-prescribing-by-Christian-Daughton.pdf
13. Much more information can be found at www.cytotoxicsafety.org
Thanks for reading my rant for today.
From: pharmwaste-bounces at lists.dep.state.fl.us
[mailto:pharmwaste-bounces at lists.dep.state.fl.us] On Behalf Of Ed Gottlieb
Sent: Tuesday, February 9, 2016 9:32 AM
To: 'pharmwaste at lists.dep.state.fl.us'
Subject: [Pharmwaste] Contaminated Drinking Water on Cape Cod
Cape Cod has a long history of ground and drinking water contamination
issues.
To prevent salt water intrusion into the sand aquifer, wastewater is
typically injected rather than discharged.
Otis Air Base is a superfund site. There are ten separate pollution plumes
that are undergoing extraction and treatment, with a combined pump rate of
10.7 MGD.
http://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0100960
The use of phosphate detergents over a limited number of years now shows up
as an uneven ring, spreading with the flow of groundwater. Another plume is
TCE, which was used to clean fighter planes for many years.
Another drinking water problem on the Cape stemmed from the use of concrete
water pipes that were reinforced with asbestos fibers. At some point it was
realized that asbestos fibers in drinking water posed a health risk. To
abate the asbestos, the pipes were coated with vinyl. Ever since, the TCE
that carried the vinyl has been leaching into the drinking water.
http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/dep/water/drinking/alpha/i-thru-z/vlac1982.pdf
WARNING: Rant below!
It seems to me that technological fixes to technological problems often turn
out to cause problems of their own, sometimes worse than the original. A
recent example is "BPA free" plastics.
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/03/tritan-certichem-eastman-bpa-
free-plastic-safe
And, what do we know of about the health effects of the new generation of
fire retardant chemicals?
Ed Gottlieb
Chair, Coalition for Safe Medication Disposal
Industrial Pretreatment Coordinator
Ithaca Area Wastewater Treatment Facility
525 3rd Street
Ithaca, NY 14850
(607) 273-8381
fax: (607) 273-8433
_____
From: pharmwaste-bounces at lists.dep.state.fl.us
[pharmwaste-bounces at lists.dep.state.fl.us] on behalf of Tenace, Laurie
[Laurie.Tenace at dep.state.fl.us]
Sent: Tuesday, February 09, 2016 8:08 AM
To: 'pharmwaste at lists.dep.state.fl.us'
Subject: FW: [Pharmwaste] Septic Systems Contaminate Drinking Water Wells on
Cape Cod article
Please note this email did not originate with me. I know some people are
having problems posting to the list serve. I am working on a fix but for the
meantime, if you try to post something unsuccessfully, please forward it to
me and I'll post it for you.
Please also realize that the list serve is just a small part of my job and
sometimes the list serve has to wait. If I am out of the office, no one else
is responding to it for me.
Still, we're lucky to have this great way to communicate about these issues
-
Thanks,
Laurie
From: John Anderson [mailto:JcAnderson27 at outlook.com]
Sent: Monday, February 01, 2016 11:40 AM
To: 'Tenace, Laurie'; 'pharmwaste at lists.dep.state.fl.us'
Subject: RE: [Pharmwaste] Septic Systems Contaminate Drinking Water Wells on
Cape Cod article
Laurie,
Great post!
It is terrific to hear about anomalies on Cape Cod reverberating from the
West Coast and Seattle!
A couple of points not mentioned:
. Cape Cod is essentially a giant sand bar with ground water. It
stays fixed in its location thanks to the Army Corps of Engineers and
battles fought by each town.
. The aquifer is very high, therefore on Cape Cod, Groundwater =
Surface Water
. Similar concerns exist for the islands Nantucket, Martha's
Vineyard and Jamestown in harbor of Newport RI
. Sadly in some areas on Cape Cod, where there actually is town
sewage, the towns often inject into the ground. (I understand there may be
some pre-treatment, but pre-treatment for what?)
One evening in Cambridge, MA at an event sponsored by MIT, where
Pharma-Cycle was one of the featured companies presenting, one serial
entrepreneur out of MIT lingered by our table. The man was obviously
thinking about some things he usually did not focus upon ion life. In
chatting with him I mentioned my septic in Boxford, MA was on the backyard
behind my lawn and the well-head was on the front lawn. Additionally my
well in Boxford is 300 feet deep with a lot of solid New England ledge in
between the two systems. However, I told him that while shopping for houses
I was laughed at as I had wells tested, sometimes with shocking results .
even in geologies assumed to be similar to Boxford's.
To my utter amazement, this very precise individual insisted his well at his
summer home on either Nantucket or Martha's Vineyard (I cannot recall which)
was only 9 feet deep!!! He absolutely insisted 9 feet was the exact depth.
I would like to think he was terribly mistaken . but he knew all sorts of
other details regarding a broad range of subjects . so maybe that evening he
discovered a huge oversight and family health risk! I remember suggesting
Poland Springs Water!
I am hoping Jim Mullowney, who has brought some resources to bear on these
questions and caused studies to be performed on Cape Cod, will follow-up
this post with some temperate and thoughtful posts showing the Cancer Fish
from Cape Cod, etc.
Thanks again for this very enlightening post showing some of the issues
highlighted on Cape Cod are being heard nationally!
Best Regards!
John Anderson
jcanderson at HUBCFO.com
617-499-6900 Office
617-499-6900 Fax
978-837-0092 Mobile
From: pharmwaste-bounces at lists.dep.state.fl.us
[mailto:pharmwaste-bounces at lists.dep.state.fl.us] On Behalf Of Tenace,
Laurie
Sent: Friday, January 29, 2016 9:16 AM
To: 'pharmwaste at lists.dep.state.fl.us'
Subject: [Pharmwaste] Septic Systems Contaminate Drinking Water Wells on
Cape Cod article
http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2016/world/septic-systems-contaminate-
drinking-water-wells-on-cape-cod/
Cape Cod, the hooked arm of land that flexes eastward from mainland
Massachusetts, is the iconic New England vacation spot. Less glamorously, it
is also the perfect laboratory to study the relationship between wastewater
and groundwater contamination.
The peninsula, whose population of 215,000 more than doubles during the
summer, has tight clusters of septic systems and shallow household drinking
water wells. Both are placed, on the same parcel of land, in sand and gravel
soils through which water easily flows. Combined, it is a recipe for
contamination. That is exactly what researchers at the Silent Spring
Institute have found.
They tested 20 household drinking water wells for 117 organic compounds in
an area that uses exclusively septic systems or cesspools, which are
backyard means of disposing toilet waste and water that goes down drains.
The organic compounds are pharmaceuticals, personal care products,
sweeteners, and certain chemicals used to stop fire. In the well water, the
researchers detected 27 of the compounds, some of which have been found to
interfere with hormonal development and reproduction in fish species. Health
guidelines exist for only 10 of the compounds they detected.
The study was published on January 27 online in the journal Science of the
Total Environment
<http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969715312353> .
"Septic systems were not designed to remove these contaminants," Laurel
Schaider, a research scientist and lead author of the study, told Circle of
Blue. "In dense areas, many people are downstream of someone else's septic
system."
A 2014 study
<http://www.silentspring.org/resource/pharmaceuticals-perfluorosurfactants-a
nd-other-organic-wastewater-compounds-public-drinking> from Silent Spring
found similar contaminants in wells used by public drinking water systems.
Household drinking water wells are particularly vulnerable to septic system
pollution
<http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2015/world/americas-spreading-septic-
threat/> . Well owners, unlike operators of public drinking water systems,
are not required to test their water for contaminants. Household wells serve
14 percent of the U.S. population, more than 44 million people.
Finding the Medicine Cabinet in Groundwater
There is a well-established connection
<http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2015/world/septic-system-pollution-co
ntributes-to-disease-outbreaks/> between septic systems and nitrate and
bacterial pollution in drinking water wells. This causes problems.
Two-thirds of disease outbreaks
<http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gwat.12121/abstract;jsessionid=9
B4AA8F1A20F27E5E8B40D72290077B8.f02t04> in the United States due to
untreated groundwater in the last four decades were linked to septic systems
or a poorly designed well, according to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention.
Schaider and her colleagues, however, were looking for a different type of
contaminant on Cape Cod. Pharmaceuticals, flame retardants, and other
similar compounds are known as "emerging" contaminants because their health
effects are only beginning to be studied and few have federal drinking water
standards .
Schaider was careful to note that the concentrations they detected - none of
which exceeded health guidelines - were tiny, in the parts-per-billion
range, which is thousands or millions of times lower than a medical dose.
Even so, the cumulative, long-term effect of drin king water with low
pharmaceutical concentrations, especially for children or pregnant women, is
poorly understood.
"There are health concerns about the interaction of different chemicals in
the body," Schaider said.
Remedies
What is a town or a homeowner to do? More than eight out of 10 homes on Cape
Cod uses a septic system or cesspool and one in five uses a household well.
Gathering more information about well water quality is one recommendation.
That information, however, is expensive. Schaider said that analyzing one
water sample for the 117 contaminants in her study cost $US 1,800.
"It's not routine testing that everyone can do," she said.
The researchers looked for a shortcut that might help homeowners. They
analyzed the relationship between different contaminants, to see if the
presence of one could indicate the presence of others. Nitrate, which is not
removed by traditional septic systems, was a suitable though imperfect match
- imperfect because agriculture runoff is also a large source of nitrate
pollution. Testing for nitrate is much cheaper, roughly $US 20 per sample.
Other recommendations involve more effort. Local ordinances that require a
certain distance between septic systems and household wells could be
revised, Schaider said. Or, instead of continuing to build individual wells,
new developments could drill a community well to supply many homes. The well
would be strategically located away from septic system runoff.
That option, of course, does nothing to address the root cause of the
pollution, which is the septic system itself. Some communities on Cape Cod
are experimenting with new treatment techniques
<http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2015/world/americas-septic-system-fai
lures-can-be-fixed/> , but more will be needed. Roughly one in five U.S.
households uses a septic system.
Laurie Tenace
Environmental Specialist
Waste Reduction Section
Florida Department of Environmental Protection
2600 Blair Stone Road, MS4555
Tallahassee, FL 32399
Laurie.Tenace at dep.state.fl.us
850.245.8759
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