A little drugs with your drink?

A couple of weeks ago the news reported that pharmaceuticals in varying amounts can be found in our waterways and in the drinking water we consume.  This has actually been known for some time.  These pollutants are having negative effects on the fish (including feminized male fish) and other wildlife that rely on the streams, lakes, bays and other waters of our State.   While it is claimed that the amounts of drugs in our waters are minute and do not have an effect on people, can we really afford the risk that further studies will prove them wrong?

These chemicals are in the waterways and aquifers throughout the United States and other countries.  Under the Clean Water Act and New Jerseys Water Pollution Act, I believe these chemicals are pollutants and the discharge of these chemicals into the waterways should be restricted.  Under the Clean Water Act (CWA), it is unlawful to discharge any pollutant into the waters of the United States.  33 U.S.C. 1311.  

  In order for the CWA to be applicable there must be a finding that a pollutant is being added to a water of the United States from a point source. 

Are pharmaceuticals a pollutant?

Under the Clean Water Act, a pollutant is defined as:

 “dredged spoil, solid waste, incinerator residue, sewage, garbage, sewage sludge, munitions, chemical wastes, biological materials, radioactive materials, heat, . . . and industrial, municipal, and agricultural waste discharged into water.”  33 U.S.C. 1262.    

Under the New Jersey’s Water Pollution Act, pollutant is defined very similar to that of the Clean Water Act but it is specifically noted to include both hazardous and nonhazardous pollutants.  Pharmaceuticals are clearly chemical or maybe in some cases biological materials.   Therefore, even though pharmaceuticals are intended to help us they are still a pollutant under both the CWA and NJ’s WPA.

  Are the pollutants being discharged from a point source?

These chemicals enter our waterways mainly through our toilets through our sewers, then to water treatment plants and are ultimately discharged into a stream or river.  We discharge these chemicals either when we “relieve ourselves” or when we flush unused medicines down the toilet.  Our bodies do not fully use the medicines we take and the excess is excreted.  Ultimately these chemicals enter our waterways through a point source- the publically owned treatment works. (POTW).  In its simplest terms follow the pipe from a water treatment plant to the nearest waterway and there is your point source.  Therefore, there is a discharge from a point source.

Once it has been determined that a point source needs to or is discharging a pollutant, that point source is required to obtain a permit from a governmental agency.  In the case of New Jersey that agency is the Department of Environmental Protection.  So far, DEP (nor is any agency) is not regulating this kind of discharge. There are no standards setting forth how much of each kind of drug is safe to discharge.   Also, most water treatment plants do not monitor or test for pharmaceuticals.  Even if a POTW is testing for the chemicals, removing pharmaceuticals from the water is difficult and expensive. 

Some areas are starting to look at one cause of the problem. For example, Puget Sound and Spokane have instituted a take back the drugs program which reduces or eliminates the flushing of drugs down the toilet.

It is somewhat sad to note that thirty-six years after then enactment of the Clean Water Act, we are finding more and more pollutants in our waterways, when the CWA provided, “it is the national goal that the discharge of pollutants into the navigable waters be eliminated by 1985.”  33 U.S.C. 1251(a)(1).  As a nation we must begin to reduce the amount of any substance that enters our waterways.   Those substances that do enter our waterways we treat and eliminate before that water is discharged into our waterways.

Tags: Clean Water, clean water act, drugs, nj water pollution prevention act, pharmaceuticals