Sludge Watch ==> USA - No standards, testing, treating, or limits to pharma in water

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

When other industries pollute the environment - like mines and steel mills, 
and plating companies - we the public get concerned and eventually they have 
to change their technology to produce less pollution.

But the wastewater industry seems to be the last industry to want to clean 
up its act.  It hides behind 19th century techologies (like the Sir Thomas 
Crapper flush toilet and the sewer) while  some of the contaminants it is 
dealing with are in no way contained by those technologies.

Wastewater needs to step up to the plate and star using technologies and 
processes that are more environmentally protective.  Dry toilets, industries 
that manage or recycle their own wastewater streams, and new technologies 
are needed.  It is no ok for them to say - "we have this ole sewage 
treatment plant - we can't help what people do put down there".   
Discharging contaminated effluents and contaminated sludges into the 
environment are unacceptable practices.

The wastewater industry needs to heed these reports.
Other industries change and adopt cleaner technologies, and the wastewater 
industry should, too.

.................................................................................






No standards, no mandates to test, treat or limit pharmaceuticals in water


May 2, 2008 3:00 AM by The Associated Press, The Examiner
12 hrs ago: Fish and wildlife showing adverse effects of drug contamination 
in waterways
12 hrs ago: AP investigation details pharmaceuticals found in watersheds of 
28 major metro area
12 hrs ago: Water providers and researchers rarely release full test results 
to the public
12 hrs ago: 2 US senators, congresswoman to convene hearings on AP's probe 
of medications in water
12 hrs ago: Pharmaceuticals found in drinking water, affecting wildlife and 
maybe humans
» 12 hrs ago: No standards, no mandates to test, treat or limit 
pharmaceuticals in water «
12 hrs ago: Water cleaning technologies present challenges - some work 
better than others
12 hrs ago: Illinois orders water testing in reaction to AP series; 
providers elsewhere assure supplies are OK
12 hrs ago: Bottled water industry faces same federal standards for 
pharmaceuticals as tap water - none
12 hrs ago: Drug traces turn up in source waters for nation's biggest city


Filed under: , The Associated Press , Tainted Water

Just a century ago, historic Philadelphia, notched by the Delaware and 
Schuylkill, treated these rivers as public sewers, but few cared until the 
waters ran black with stinking filth that spread cholera and typhoid. Today, 
municipal drinking water is cleansed of germs - but not drugs.

Traces of 56 human and veterinary pharmaceuticals or their byproducts - like 
the active ingredients in medicines for pain, infection, high cholesterol, 
asthma, epilepsy, mental illness and heart problems - have been detected in 
Philadelphia's drinking water. Starting their winding journey in medicine 
cabinets and feed bins, they are what's left of drugs excreted or discarded 
from homes and washed from farms upriver.

Is Philadelphia worried? Not so far. Tens of millions of Americans here and 
elsewhere drink water that has tested positive for minute concentrations of 
pharmaceuticals, and they don't even realize it, The Associated Press 
learned during a five-month investigation.

Though U.S. waterways coast to coast are contaminated with residues of 
prescription and over-the-counter drugs, there's no national strategy to 
deal with them - no effective mandates to test, treat, limit or even advise 
the public.

Water cleaning technologies present challenges - some work better than 
others Benjamin H. Grumbles, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's 
assistant administrator for water, told the AP the agency recognizes that 
this contamination in water supplies is a growing concern and that 
government has some catching up to do: "Our position is there needs to be 
more searching, more analysis."

He said the EPA has launched a four-pronged approach: to identify the extent 
of the problem, to "identify what we don't know and close the gap," to take 
steps using existing science and regulatory tools, and finally, to increase 
dialogue and awareness with water providers and state and local agencies.

But none of those goals has any regulatory firepower.

Some researchers, environmentalists, health professionals, water managers 
and bureaucrats say it's time for government to do more.

"The onus has been on the scientific community to provide the research, but 
at this point the evidence is conclusive," says U.S. Geological Survey 
scientist Steven Goodbred, who has studied carp in drug-tainted waters. "Now 
it's up to the public and policy makers to decide what they want to do about 
it."

Yet water regulators are barely budging:

The government has set no national standards for how much of any 
pharmaceutical is too much in waterways or taps. Drugs in the environment 
are "not currently a priority" of the National Center for Environmental 
Health, says spokesman Charles L. Green, at its parent U.S. Centers for 
Disease Control.

Though the Food and Drug Administration can review the environmental impact 
of new drugs, it has never rejected one on this basis, according to Raanan 
Bloom, an FDA environmental officer. Most pharmaceuticals are excluded from 
environmental review on the basis of their presumed low concentrations in 
water.

Even though residues of many types of prescription and over-the-counter 
drugs have been discovered in scores of watersheds and drinking water 
systems nationwide, the EPA says it awaits more survey data before 
considering action. The agency has little information "that goes into 
whether these substances are occurring in the environment ... and at what 
level," says Suzanne Rudzinski, a manager at EPA's Office of Water.

But even when the EPA says it's taking action, little is accomplished. The 
agency analyzed 287 pharmaceuticals for inclusion on a draft list of 
contaminants to be considered for regulation. Only one, nitroglycerin, which 
can be used as a drug for heart problems, has been nominated. Asked to 
explain, an EPA spokesman acknowledged the primary reason for inclusion was 
its use in making explosives.

Though pharmaceutical sales are rising, plants that cleanse sewage or 
drinking water are not required to remove drugs. They aren't even required 
to monitor for them.

When contacted directly by the AP, many water utilities confirmed whether 
they had tested for the presence of pharmaceuticals in their water. But 
federal agencies and industry groups declined to identify the cities and 
treatment plants where traces of pharmaceuticals had been found during 
independent studies, citing confidentiality concerns.

Philadelphia has found more pharmaceuticals in its source and drinking 
waters than any of the other 61 big water providers surveyed by the AP. It 
tested for more drugs and byproducts than other utilities - a total of 72 - 
and it found 56, or three-quarters of those checked, in its drinking water. 
It found 63 - almost 90 percent of those checked - in its source waters. 
More study is planned.

However, water managers detected scant concentrations similar to other 
places, suggesting they found so much largely because they tested for a 
larger list of pharmaceuticals - not necessarily because their watersheds 
are more contaminated. David A. Katz, a deputy water commissioner for the 
city, said the water was tested so heavily out of vigilance: "We choose to 
know; we choose to look."

Under no obligation to tell, Philadelphia keeps it quiet when tests show 
that drugs have reached its drinking water, the AP found. Philadelphia Water 
Department spokeswoman Laura Copeland provided the findings for an AP survey 
but added: "We don't want to create any perception where people would be 
alarmed."

John Muldowney, who oversees the city's three drinking water treatment 
plants, said no immediate upgrades are planned to filter out 
pharmaceuticals. "Based just on the data that's available now ... we would 
be risking spending a lot of money, a lot of public funds, for very little 
health benefit," he explained.

Government leaders seem largely to share that attitude. "We're not really 
doing anything on this right now," says a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Harry 
Reid, D-Nev., though he has earmarked funds in the past to study 
environmental drugs in his state.

Congress held hearings in 2006 on endocrine-disrupting compounds after 
researchers discovered that the Potomac River, dotted with sewage treatment 
plants, contains feminized male bass which create egg yolk proteins, a 
process usually restricted to females. But the hearings produced no new 
proposals.

In Boston, drug makers, state representatives and water managers have been 
grinding through their third year trying to craft a compromise approach to 
dealing with the problem on a national scale. Scott Cassel, director of the 
Product Stewardship Institute, which is hosting the dialogue, says 
controlling waterborne pharmaceuticals will make the disposal of old 
computers "seem simple by comparison."

"There's definitely a growing movement and a growing concern, but at this 
point there isn't a lot of direction from the federal government," adds 
Susan Frechette, a policy expert at the institute.

Grumbles, the EPA's top water pollution official, said the agency has 
embarked on four studies specific to the presence of pharmaceuticals and 
personal care products in wastewater and fish tissue. One "national study," 
expected to be completed next year, will look at the inflow and outflow at 
nine sewage plants; another will study sludge from 74 randomly selected 
sewage treatment plants.

The fish tissue study will focus on five streams where the flow primarily 
originates at a sewage treatment plant.

Just two months ago the agency developed three new methods to detect and 
quantify about 160 different pharmaceuticals and personal care products, 
including steroids and hormones, in wastewater and sewage sludge, Grumbles 
said.

A year ago, the federal government put out its first consumer guidelines for 
discarding leftover or expired medicines. The goal was to slow the flow of 
drugs flushed down the toilet. Though Grumbles acknowledged that human 
excretions are the major factor in spreading pharmaceuticals through the 
waste stream, he said it is important for all Americans to realize "the 
toilet is not a trash can."

But the guidelines immediately drew criticism from some environmentalists, 
water treatment experts and pharmaceutical researchers who say they are 
contradictory, confusing, and don't solve the problem.

The guidelines say that about a dozen specific drugs should still be flushed 
down the toilet to keep others from finding and abusing them. The rest 
should be mixed with something unsavory like coffee grounds and tossed into 
the trash. That just moves the problem, though: The drugs end up at 
landfills, where they can slowly seep into the groundwater.

The EPA is also engaged in a national study - expected to be completed by 
the end of the summer - to examine how long-term health care facilities and 
nursing homes dispose of pharmaceuticals.

"We don't really know what to do with waste pharmaceuticals," acknowledges 
Laura Brannen, executive director of the professional group Hospitals for a 
Healthy Environment.

The government barely oversees drugs spilled or tossed by hospitals and drug 
makers. Discharge limits for drug makers concentrate on chemicals used in 
manufacturing, not the drugs themselves; Virginia Cunningham, an 
environmental executive at drug maker GlaxoSmithKline PLC, says the industry 
spills very little of the drugs that turn up in waterways.

At hospitals, the EPA flags about three dozen specific drugs as hazardous 
waste. Though their dangers are acknowledged, the rules for special disposal 
have been casually observed, according to environmental specialists in the 
industry. They say many hospitals still dump some of those hazardous 
pharmaceuticals into their other garbage.

Also, the list hasn't been updated for years and ignores scores of 
troublesome newer drugs, including toxic chemotherapy agents.

"It has not been practical or economical to keep pace with the large number 
of pharmaceuticals developed, approved ... and marketed each year," explains 
EPA spokeswoman Roxanne Smith.

And what of the drug waste generated by millions of U.S. households? It's 
exempt from these rules. The EPA again says it would be impractical to act.

In fairness, even those pressing for action realize that regulators must 
strike a hard balance between potential benefits and costs. Several recent 
studies indicate that even very dilute pharmaceuticals can harm human cells, 
but scientists are still unsure if there's a significant health risk from 
drinking water with trace drugs.

Environmental standards focus on better-understood contaminants from 
disease-causing germs to manmade dioxins. The government also is pondering a 
raft of newly identified water contaminants in many products from cosmetics 
to vitamins - not just in pharmaceuticals.

The government has tried to narrow the focus of much of its drugs-in-water 
research to powerful hormones that orchestrate reproduction and development 
and omnipresent antibiotics that strengthen the very germs in the 
environment that they're meant to kill in the body.

"This is a complex issue because each and every one of us is a part of this 
problem. But there's no doubt we need a new standard of wastewater 
treatment. If the limits were there, believe me when I say it could be 
done," argues environmental toxicologist Greg Moller, at the University of 
Idaho.

As with global warming, some cities and states have tried to forge ahead, 
even without strong federal direction. Small pilot programs and one-day 
pickups of unused drugs have popped up in the Northeast, California, 
Washington state, Florida, and elsewhere.

Maine is preparing to accept unwanted pharmaceuticals on a grander scale. 
The federal and state governments have split the $300,000 cost to launch a 
four-county trial in coming months. Pharmaceutical buyers will take home 
prepaid mailers to send drug leftovers to a way station, where most will be 
picked up for transport to incinerators. Organizers intend eventually to 
roll out the program statewide.

Drug pollution stirs more anxiety in Europe, Canada and Australia, and 
officials in those places have acted more aggressively to reclaim unused 
drugs. A French program recaptured about 6,500 tons at drug stores in 2005, 
managers estimate. Two-thirds of the French say they participate, according 
to one poll.

That program is run by Jacques Aumonier, an environmental officer for 
Cephalon, Inc., a Pennsylvania-based biopharmaceuticals firm. He said 
pharmaceutical levels in water may be modest now, "but with more and more 
drug use, it can become more important."

Some researchers and activists want to catch and stop drugs from entering 
waterways at both types of water treatment plants - those for sewage and for 
drinking water. Standard techniques allow many to slip through, research 
shows. It seems possible to remove virtually all detectable pharmaceutical 
traces with an advanced treatment known as reverse osmosis, and hotter 
incinerators also could burn more drugs.

But all that is viewed as too expensive and maybe unnecessary, at least 
until the threat is better understood.

"When there's no regulation or limit, and no evidence of human health 
impacts, it's very hard to justify putting in energy and money to test for 
it," said Shane Snyder, research and development project manager at the 
Southern Nevada Water Authority in Las Vegas. Never mind spending much more 
to remove it.

Some critics want drug companies to design medicines that break down more 
easily into safer byproducts. "In the long run ... we can at least make some 
of the compounds greener," says chemist Klaus Kuemmerer, at the University 
of Freiburg Medical Center in Germany.

However, that would come "a distant third" after designing drugs for 
effectiveness and safety, says Cunningham of GlaxoSmithKline.

In coming years, public pressure is likely to grow, as more pharmaceuticals 
find their way into less water. Drug use is expanding in many countries, and 
more communities will need to recycle treated wastewater for drinking to 
cope with increased demand, drought, and global warming.

At the same time, today's chemical tests that reveal pollutants in parts per 
trillion will no doubt be able to detect even finer levels in the future. 
The added knowledge may not equal bliss, though.

"There isn't such a thing as 100 percent pure water," said EPA scientist 
Christian Daughton, one of the first to sound warnings over pharmaceutical 
pollution. "Yet people have a tough time with the idea that water contains 
all kinds of chemicals."

http://www.examiner.com/a-1371265~No_standards__no_mandates_to_test__treat_or_limit_pharmaceuticals_in_water.html