Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter
Pharmaceutical Report Begs the Question ‘What’s in Your Water?’
By Joan McCarter, 3-11-08
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A few weeks ago I wrote on the always hot-button issue of water politics in the West, and a framework developed by Western Progress for divvying up the precious resource. They need to go back to the drawing board and figure in a new problem in the whole configuration—how to make that water safe.
It seems that our prescription-drug dependent culture is far more pervasive than anyone knew--even if you’re not consciously swallowing the pills, you’re taking the stuff. At least, that’s what the Associated Press found in an investigation of the nation’s water supply.
(AP)—A vast array of pharmaceuticals—including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones—have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.
To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe.
But the presence of so many prescription drugs—and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen—in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists of long-term consequences to human health.
In the course of a five-month inquiry, the AP discovered that drugs have been detected in the drinking water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas—from Southern California to Northern New Jersey, from Detroit, Michigan, to Louisville, Kentucky.
Ok, so maybe it’s not in concentrations yet high enough to affect human health, and in our self-obsession we can all be relieved about that. But there’s this whole other issue that the AP story barely touches on.
Some scientists stress that the research is extremely limited, and there are too many unknowns. They say, though, that the documented health problems in wildlife are disconcerting.
Hmmmmm..... disconcerting. That’s the extent of what the AP has to say about all of the other organisms enjoying the wonders of pharmaceuticals. But the Rocky Mountain News dug a little deeper to find out what’s in Colorado’s water and exactly what that means for everything else.
Antibiotics and lotions, pills and hormones foul Colorado’s water, from the most pristine alpine lakes to the downstream rivers, say water experts....
Below the wastewater treatment plant in Boulder, female suckers outnumber male suckers 5-to-1, likely from ingesting estrogen in the streams, said Alan Vajda, a research associate in integrated physiology at the University of Colorado.
Males have egg-yolk proteins in their systems, low sperm counts and intersex gonads.
Downstream from Denver on the South Platte River, female fish also greatly outnumber the males, he said.
That’s just the fish. The stuff is seeping into aquifers, mixing in with an already potent concoction of fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides, the stuff of lush green lawns and verdant croplands, and being poured back onto our lawns. And our food supplies. Want some lithium with that green salad? You might not have a choice.
Of course water quality is always at the back of our minds--why else do you see so many people carrying around those little plastic bottles of the boutique stuff--bottles that may or may not be leaching out the petrochemicals they’re made of but nonetheless might be containing nothing more than the the plain old tap water they are seemingly avoiding.
Not to be an alarmist or anything, but it seems like now while we’re talking about water in terms of how we’re going to continue to get it across the region, it would be a good time to talk about what’s in it and how we keep what’s in it from getting into everything else.
Editor’s note: Joan McCarter’s weekly blogs are part of NewWest.Net/Politics’ “Diary of a Mad Voter” feature, a group blog, published in partnership with the Denver Post’s Politics West intended give a glimpse into the hearts and minds of several independent-minded voters and thinkers in the Rocky Mountain West in the ‘08 election cycle. For more columns check in with www.newwest.net/madvoter. And for more information on each of the bloggers, click here.
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Comments
I'm thinking for one thing of the riverrunners like those going down the Colorado, who dig little holes up and down the river to put their waste in.
All of it. Especialy those sexy harmones in the San Francisco water supply. And all the prozac too. Everybody knows how depressed all backcountry users are. That's why they're in the backcountry, using it. It's because they can't hack it in the Front Country trying to compete with the captains of industry and the salt of the earth ranchers and tough ambitious slaughterhouse workers. Wait'll runoff get going with all this hot weather we got. Drink from the tap- whoooo. All the viagra ffrom the snowmobiler's leavings, combined with the prozac from the depressed econut skinny skiers.
There's not enough guard llamas in all of Colorado to keep the sheep safe.
Paging "Client9"...paging "Client9"
And here I thought all along those CSU sheep were trained to back up. Not killer sheep, but retreating sheep.
Someone once told me a part per billion was like a thimble of something in Hungry Horse Reservoir. I have no idea what a part per trillion is, just that it can now be measured. Do we scramble under our desks, on our knees, heads down with hands clasped over them, now that parts per trillion can be measured and doomsday is just around the corner once again?
The same paper that reported the stuff in drinking water also said a quarter of teenage girls have at least one STD. At least the hormones are not going all to waste.
I know that responsible lawmakers will institute statewide zoning to protect farmland because that is the only place now available to dump the solids from the local turd grinder. In Oregon, pulp mill waste is used instead of lime to sweeten acid ground, and turd grinder trucks roll all summer painting the grass seed fields black. Those stainless "AG-GROW" or some falacious name trailers, are hauling last years dinner to this years non-food farm field as fertilizer. And it does not run off, either. Nope. Can't. It gets incorporated into the soil, and will not drain out the tile lines. Nope. And it is all good stuff in there. We take out all the syringes and condoms and stuff. Nothing but pure sludge left when it leaves here........land use planning is making sure the people in town have a place to dump their crap, their unwanted pets, their garbage, their wolves.
The stuff I remember about it was that the antibacterial stuff they put in everything lowers the amount of good bacteria in the environment and kills algae, and there is carbamazapine pretty much everywhere. It is an anti psychotic if I remember, and doesn't break down for like 20 years or more. People used to be advised to flush unused meds down the toilet, really bad idea... that is where that stuff seems to mostly come from. Figure that the local wingers would use this thread to gay bash.
The reason we over-medicate is that we go to the doctor asking for the latest medicine we've seen advertised on TV. And the reason its in our water-table is the same reason everything we ingest ends up in our water-table.
Despite what your neighborhood preacher might tell you every drop of water we're drinking has been urinated by at least one creature before we drink it--and those perfect sand filters are becoming less effective with every new creature born onto this earth...
And...regardless of whether its a part-per-thousand or a part-per trillion, this is a concern. Things in very small amounts can cause some pretty serious effects, or at least wreck havoc with metabolism, both ours and the critters that live in the water. Those that say that because its a waaay small amount that it wont cause harm are recycling the same flush-it-down-and-get-rid-of-it mentality - its ignorant denial. We know there are effects. We know it. We just arent sure of all the cocktails that can be created and what each effect might be.