Conference tackles pharmaceutical water pollution
Sat, Oct. 16, 2004
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunhera...al/9933379.htm
Conference tackles pharmaceutical water pollution
BILOXI - Fish and frogs are changing sexes. Male alligators aren't developing
working reproductive organs. And expectant mothers are more likely than ever
to welcome a Geraldine into the world rather than a Gerald, as average sperm
counts decline worldwide.
"It's a conspiracy!" cracked one conference attendee sitting in on a session
dealing with pharmaceutical pollution of water supplies, a special topic of
this week's National Rural Water Association conference in Biloxi.
The culprit of this gender-bending mayhem is thought to be the chemical
revolution of the last century.
Scientists are discovering that a wide range of chemicals - including
pesticides, hormone therapy drugs, psychiatric drugs, steroids, flame
retardant and cosmetics - all share troubling properties.
Known as endocrine disrupters, the chemicals in these drugs slip unregulated
through drinking water treatment plants and out of faucets around the country.
They are expected to be the next major regulatory challenge for wastewater
operators.
"It's not so much things that cause cancer at high exposures. They're not the
things that kill you," Jerry Biberstine, an environmental engineer for the
NRWA, told audiences. "It's things that change you in a very slow way from
what you should be."
Endocrine disrupters affect the endocrine system, a complex system of glands
and organs that secrete hormones into the human body to regulate reproduction
and development. These include the thyroid, pancreas, pituitary, ovaries,
testes and adrenal glands.
In South Mississippi, the problem first came to light in a Sun Herald article
about Moss Point student Anna Jordan, who took on the issue as part of her
senior year research project in 2003 at Mercy Cross High School. With the help
of wastewater officials in Jackson and Harrison counties, she found caffeine
and estrogen in the treated wastewater of 100 percent of the samples
collected.
But the risks are still far from clear.
After all, pesticides are thought to be the No. 1 source of endocrine
disrupters. About 80 percent of adults and 90 percent of children in the U.S.
test positive for pesticides, Biberstine said. But such contact may be made
through the air and food supply, as well as water.
Federal drinking water standards for one of the most problematic disrupters,
atrazine, is 30 parts per billion, though developmental changes have been
recorded in frogs as low as .2 ppb.
And though a clearer understanding of the risks - and the ability of treatment
plants to deal with the problem - is likely years away, there are plenty of
reasons to be concerned, Biberstine said.
"In looking at the data, you have some really severe health effects," he said.
"This is a thing that's so important it could drive a change in the whole
wastewater industry... It's going to impact almost everything we know in one
way or another."
Kamran Pahlavan, executive director of the Harrison County Wastewater
District, said the treatment plant does not test for chemicals like atrazine
in its discharge since the EPA does not regulate it. But he said there have
been inquiries by the agency for samples to test for radioactive waste
entering from area hospitals.
That wave of regulation is coming, he said. "You're right. The pharmaceutical
is next."
