Sludge Watch ==> Pharmaceuticals, Hormones, Other Organic Wastewater. Contaminants in US Streams

[maureen.reilly at sympatico.ca]

Sludgewatch Admin:

Many industries in North America are no longer polluting the environment the 
way they once were.
In general, more stringent requirements on steel mills, mines, paper mills, 
coke ovens, plating companies etc...mean a cleaner environment.   But sewage 
treatment plants are often overlooked even though there is evidence that 
they are still one of the worst polluters of surface waters and oceans in 
North America.


Why?  Well, there are more of us living in cities, so more people are on 
'the big pipe' to the sewage treatment plant. And sewage treatment plants 
make effluent and sludge.  Once you use water to flush industrial waste 
mixed with excrement it is darn difficult to get it clean again. And what do 
you do with the heavy metal infused pathogenic mess that is sludge?

The wastewater industry often asks for, and gets, more lenient treatment 
than other industries.  They argue that they are not an industry, and ask 
for exemptions on meeting the water discharge limits that other industries 
must meet.  (see Canada and ammonia discharges to surface water in the area 
of CEPA Priority Pollutants)

Sanitation isn't glamorous but it is critical to environmental and public 
health.  We need to rethink using water to flush waste...and we need to look 
at the fate of these emerging contaminants from disposing of sludge, sewage 
effluents and septage into the environment.  We are recyling our toxins into 
the creatures of the water, the wildlife, and into our children.  This is 
not 'beneficial'.

Here is a two page fact sheet from the US Geological Survey on the study 
introduced below:

http://toxics.usgs.gov/pubs/FS-027-02/pdf/FS-027-02.pdf




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Pharmaceuticals, Hormones, and Other Organic Wastewater. Contaminants in US 
Streams

Dana W. Kolpin, Edward T. Furlong, Michael T. Meyer, E. Michael Thurman, 
Steven D. Zaugg, Larry B. Barber, and Herbert T. Buxton

Introduction
The continued exponential growth in human population has created a 
corresponding increase in the demand for the Earth’s limited supply of 
freshwater. Thus, protecting the integrity of our water resources is one of 
the most essential environmental issues of the 21st century. Recent decades 
have brought increasing concerns for potential adverse human and ecological 
health effects resulting from the production, use, and disposal of numerous 
chemicals that offer improvements in industry, agriculture, medical 
treatment, and even common household conveniences.

Research has shown that many such compounds can enter the environment, 
disperse, and persist to a greater extent than first anticipated. Some 
compounds, such as pesticides, are intentionally released in measured 
applications. Others, such as industrial byproducts, are released through 
regulated and unregulated industrial discharges to water and air resources. 
Household chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and other consumables as well as 
biogenic hormones are released directly to the environment after passing 
through wastewater treatment processes (via wastewater treatment plants, or 
domestic septic systems), which often are not designed to remove them from 
the effluent Veterinary pharmaceuticals used in animal feeding operations 
may be released to the environment with animal wastes through overflow or 
leakage from storage structures or land application. As a result, there are 
a wide variety of transport pathways for many different chemicals to enter 
and persist in environmental waters.

Surprisingly, little is known about the extent of environmental occurrence, 
transport, and ultimate fate of many synthetic organic chemicals after their 
intended use, particularly hormonally active chemicals, personal care 
products, and pharmaceuticals that are designed to stimulate a physiological 
response in humans, plants, and animals. One reason for this general lack of 
data is that, until recently, there have been few analytical methods capable 
of detecting these compounds at low concentrations which might be expected 
in the environment Potential concerns from the environmental presence of 
these compounds include abnormal physiological processes and reproductive 
impairment, increased incidences of cancer , the development of 
antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and the potential increased toxicity of 
chemical mixtures. For many substances, the potential effects on humans and 
aquatic ecosystems are not clearly understood.

The primary objective of this study is to provide the first nationwide 
reconnaissance of the occurrence of a broad suite of 95 organic wastewater 
contaminants (OWCs), including many compounds of emerging environmental 
concern, in streams across the United States. These OWCs are potentially 
associated with human, industrial, and agricultural wastewaters and include 
antibiotics, other prescription drugs, nonprescription drugs, steroids, 
reproductive hormones, personal care products, products of oil use and 
combustion, and other extensively used chemicals. The target OWCs were 
selected because they are expected to enter the environment through common 
wastewater pathways, are used in significant quantities, may have human or 
environmental health implications, are representative or potential 
indicators of certain classes of compounds or sources, and/or can be 
accurately measured in environmental samples using avail able technologies. 
Although these 95 OWCs are just a small subset of compounds being used by 
society, they represent a starting point for this investigation examining 
the transport of OWCs to water resources of the United States.