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Pharmaceuticals in US municipal drinking water

An AP investigation found pharmaceutical drugs present in 24 surveyed municipal water sources, affecting at least 41 million people.

The investigators contacted 62 municipalities, but only 28 had tested their water system for pharmaceuticals and many only tested for one or two types of drugs.

Some water utilities declined to answer citing post 9/11 security issues; the heart disease drug nitroglycerin is widely used to make explosives.

City tap water
- Philadelphia: at least 54 drugs
- Southern California: anti-epileptic and anti-anxiety medications
- Northern New Jersey: heart medication and the mood-stabilizing drug
- San Francisco: a sex hormone
- Tuscon, Arizona: 3 medications, including an antibiotic
- New Orleans: a pain reliever, the sex hormone, and the anti-cholesterol drug byproduct
Washington, DC: an anti-seizure medication, two pain relievers (ibuprofen and naproxen), two kinds of antibiotics (including one given to cattle), and a common disinfectant (triclocarbon).

Route of exposure
People take drugs, but they do not absorb and process all of them. They then flush away trace amounts. The wastewater flows through a sewer system to a treatment plant and then is released to the environment. Some of the water makes it back to surface water or percolate to groundwater where they are then withdrawn for drinking water. No wastewater treatment system is specifically designed to remove drugs.

Livestock are also treated with antibiotics and other drugs. Their waste is not treated but is released directly to the environment.

Concerns
- Over-exposure to antibiotics can lead to bacterial resistance.
- Combinations of drugs can have adverse effects.
- Ecological damage is already being seen; for example, fish communities are declining in certain areas with high concentrations of some estrogen-containing drugs (birth control).

False solutions
- Reverse osmosis can remove virtually all pharmaceuticals but it is very expensive and leaves behind several gallons of polluted water for every one that is drinkable.
- Bottled water wont help. Most bottled water is just prettily packaged tap water. And most bottlers do not test for pharmaceuticals.  Compared with bottled water, tap water is more stringently tested.

Solutions
Source water protection. Instead of spending outrageous amounts to treat our drinking water, we should make sure that industries and cities do not pollute them in the first place.

“The ongoing conversation about these substances should remind us of how precious our source waters are and the need to protect them,” said the American Water Works Association, “The best and most cost-effective way to ensure safe water at the tap is to keep our source waters clean.”

The Senate will hold hearings in response to these results.

What’s in your tap water?
Although public water systems are not required to report pharmaceuticals, you can view where your water comes from and what regulated contaminants it has: EPA’s Local Drinking Water Database.