Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Norma Sutton" <sweetspringfarm@gmail.com>]

This came in on another group.  I don't directly pertain to the list, but in a way it does.

Norma
 

Drugs In Our Water?

Pharmaceuticals showing up in wastewaters across the nation;
state doesn't test for them
By Matt Christensen Times News writer
March 15, 2007

TWIN FALLS - If you take an antibiotic and use the bathroom, you may
be contributing to a looming environmental crisis.

Across the nation, antibiotics and pharmaceuticals are showing up in
wastewater, and some scientists say that may be increasing the rate
at which bacteria become resistant to antibiotic medicines that fight
human diseases like staph infections. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria
could lead to a devastating epidemic.

Perhaps more alarming, federal, state and local governments are doing
little testing for drugs in waterways.In Idaho, no agency examines
water for antibiotics or pharmaceuticals.

"No, we're not testing at this time," said Richard Huddleston, the
Idaho Department of Environmental Quality's wastewater
manager. "Currently, there are no standards (for testing water for
antibiotics)."

Huddleston said he's not aware of any state that tests wastewater for
medicines, but it's a hot topic now among scientists across the
country.

Surprisingly, it was a West Virginia high school student that
pioneered the research. A teenager named Ashley Mulroy began testing
water for antibiotics several years ago after she read a report about
them showing up in European waters. For 10 weeks, she gathered
samples from the Ohio River. Her results found penicillin, among
other antibiotics, and she won a national award for her efforts.

Since Mulroy found the drugs, several research projects have
confirmed the presence of antibiotics and other drugs in the nation's
waterways.

Between January 2001 and June 2002, the U.S. Geological Survey found
an alarming amount of drugs in water they linked to fish hatcheries,
including one in Oregon.

Like the Idaho DEQ, the federal Environmental Protection Agency has
no standards for testing wastewater for antibiotics. However, its Web
site warns that "they may pose risks if they enter the environment."
The Web site also cites several studies, including one published in
1993, that implicated estrogen hormones in the decrease of sperm
counts among Western men and reproductive disorders in wildlife.

Many suspect that much of the contamination stems from agriculture
operations where animals are routinely given antibiotics and hormones
to fight infections and increase production. Some experts estimate
that as much as 40 percent of the nation's antibiotics are given to
farm animals.

However, the EPA says that little information is available that links
antibiotic water contamination to the compounds in animal waste.

Gene Taylor, an EPA drinking water expert, said, "It has not been a
high-priority issue because it hasn't shown up yet in drinking water.
But I say that with the caveat that it hasn't been widely' tested."

Taylor said someone would probably need to find antibiotics in Idaho
drinking water for the drugs to make the list of EPA's testable
compounds. Even then, he said the EPA would weigh possible health
effects of antibiotics in drinking water and the effectiveness of
procedures that could remove them before establishing a widespread
testing or regulation program.

Tlmes-News staff writer Matt Christensen

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-- 
Faith expects from God what is beyond all expectation. - Andrew Murray

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