U.S. water supply contaminated by pharmaceuticals
in treated drinking water, including medicines for pain, infection, high cholesterol, asthma, epilepsy, mental illness, and heart problems. Sixty-three pharmaceuticals or byproducts were found in the city’s watersheds.
* Anti-epileptic and anti-anxiety medications were detected in a portion of the treated drinking water for 18.5 million people in Southern California.
* Researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey analyzed a Passaic Valley Water Commission drinking water treatment plant, which serves 850,000 people in Northern New Jersey, and found a metabolized angina medicine and the mood-stabilizing carbamazepine in drinking water.
* A sex hormone was detected in San Francisco’s drinking water.
* The drinking water for Washington, D.C., and surrounding areas tested positive for six pharmaceuticals.
* Three medications, including an antibiotic, were found in drinking water supplied to Tucson, Arizona.
The situation is undoubtedly worse than suggested by the positive test results in the major population centers documented by the AP. The federal government does not require any testing and has not set safety limits for drugs in water. Of the 62 major water providers contacted, the drinking water for only 28 was tested. Among the 34 that have not: Houston, Chicago, Miami, Baltimore, Phoenix, Boston, and New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection, which delivers water to 9 million people. Some providers screen only for one or two pharmaceuticals, leaving open the possibility that others are present. The AP also indicates that watersheds, the natural sources of most of the nation’s water supply, also are contaminated. Tests were conducted in the watersheds of 35 of the 62 major providers surveyed by the AP, and pharmaceuticals were detected in 28.
Yet officials in six of those 28 metropolitan areas said they did not go on to test their drinking water — Fairfax, Virginia; Montgomery County in Maryland; Omaha, Nebraska; Oklahoma City; Santa Clara, California, and New York City. The New York state health department and the USGS tested the source of the city’s water, upstate. They found trace concentrations of heart medicine, infection fighters, estrogen, anti-convulsants, a mood stabilizer and a tranquilizer. City water officials declined repeated requests for an interview. In a statement, they insisted that “New York City’s drinking water continues to meet all federal and state regulations regarding drinking water quality in the watershed and the distribution system” — regulations that do not address trace pharmaceuticals.
In several cases, officials at municipal or regional water providers told the AP that pharmaceuticals had not been detected, but
