Pharmaceuticals and other toxins have been found in lakes like this one, Lake Champlain. (Photo by Kinna Ohman)
Less than ten years ago, the U.S. Geological Survey found household drugs and
chemicals in almost every body of water they sampled. Each year since then, at least twenty
studies come out showing these chemicals can affect the hormone systems of wildlife –
and some studies have begun to look at effects on humans. Kinna Ohman reports that,
despite all this, little has been done to address the issue:
Transcript
Less than ten years ago, the U.S. Geological Survey found household drugs and
chemicals in almost every body of water they sampled. Each year since then, at least twenty
studies come out showing these chemicals can affect the hormone systems of wildlife –
and some studies have begun to look at effects on humans. Kinna Ohman reports that,
despite all this, little has been done to address the issue:
Every major water body in the United States, whether it’s a river, lake, or wetland,
probably has at least one scientist keeping an eye on it. Lake Champlain is no exception.
This large lake, forming much of the border between Vermont and northern New York,
has its share of scientists… and Mary Watzin is one of them.
Watzin’s the director of the Rubenstein Ecosystem Science Laboratory in Burlington,
Vermont. She’s been studying how human pollution and activities impact the lake’s fish,
birds, and other water wildlife.
Watzin’s been around long enough to see quite a few of the big pollution problems resolved,
but you can’t help noticing some frustration when she talks about the latest issue:
“We’re cleaning up our act, at least with PCBs – we’re working on mercury – and
then there’s all this new generation stuff coming along.”
This new generation of pollutants includes the active parts of household chemicals and
drugs which have the potential to impact the hormone systems in wildlife. They’re in
detergents, cleaning products, and many types of drugs such as antidepressants, steroids,
and even birth control pills. Chris Hornback is with the National Association of Clean
Water Agencies:
“They’re coming from consumer products. In the case of pharmaceuticals, they’re
coming from drugs that our bodies aren’t completely metabolizing. Or, in some
cases, from unused pharmaceuticals that are being flushed down the toilet.”
And the problem is, once these drugs and chemicals leave our house, many of them aren’t
filtered out at wastewater treatment plants. Treatment plants were not designed to handle
these types of pollutants. So any lake or river which receives treated wastewater can also
receive a daily dose of these active chemicals.
Because these pollutants can number in the hundreds, just how to study them is under
debate. Mary Watzin says the old way just doesn’t work anymore:
“The classic way to examine one of these compounds is just to test it by itself. But
the fish aren’t exposed to these things by themselves, because they swim around in
the general milieu of everything that gets dumped out.”
But looking at how mixtures of household chemicals and drugs affect fish and other
wildlife can bring up more questions than answers. Because of this, Pat Phillips, a
hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey says we might want to concentrate on just
keeping these pollutants out of the environment:
“One of the things we see is that we see mixtures of many different compounds
coming into the wastewater treatment plants and coming into the environment.
And its very difficult to figure out what effect these mixtures have. But if we can
remove some of them, that makes a lot of sense.”
In the past, when the issue was industrial toxins, the solution was to control these toxins
at their source. This is because wastewater treatment plants weren’t made to deal with
industrial toxins in the same way they’re not made to deal with household drugs and
chemicals. But now, Chris Hornback says controlling this new generation of pollutants at
their source just isn’t practical:
“A lot of the substances that we’re talking about now including pharmaceuticals
and other emerging contaminants are coming from the households. So, those
sources are much harder to control. You can’t permit a household. A wastewater
treatment plant can’t control what a household discharges so that’s where public
outreach, and education, and pollution prevention efforts come into play.”
These efforts are really only starting. Some states have begun pharmaceutical take-back
programs to keep people from flushing unused medicines down the drain, but
participation is voluntary.
Everyone involved agrees that in order to solve this problem, it’s going to take people
thinking about what they’re sending down their drains. But just how to broach this
somewhat private topic is yet another question.
For the Environment Report, I’m Kinna Ohman.