Pharmaceuticals in NYC Drinking Water
November 23, 2009
Environmental Working Group
By Olga V. Naidenko, Ph.D.
Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members of the Committee: My name is Olga Naidenko, and I am a Senior Scientist at Environmental Working Group (EWG), a nonprofit research and advocacy organization based in Washington, DC; Ames, Iowa; and Oakland, California. We focus much of our research on potential health risks from chemical contamination of food, water, consumer products and the environment.
With this testimony, we express our strong support for the proposed law to amend the administrative code of the city of New York that would require testing by the Department of Environmental Protection for the presence of pharmaceuticals and personal care products in the New York City drinking water supply and the effluent from wastewater treatment plants. We commend the Council for considering this important measure that will serve as an essential step toward protecting public health from potential adverse effects of life-long, cumulative exposure to mixtures of multiple pharmaceuticals and endocrine disrupting chemicals in drinking water.
The presence of hundreds of unregulated pharmaceuticals and other synthetic chemicals in the nation’s surface, ground, waste and drinking water has been documented in studies done by the U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) and water utilities. Research demonstrates that although individual pharmaceuticals occur at relatively low levels, conventional wastewater treatment does not effectively remove them. This is cause for concern and a call for timely action.
Below, we highlight three key areas of concern around pharmaceuticals in drinking water:
The full spectrum of pharmaceuticals and related contaminants in the New York City drinking water supply is currently unknown; this gap must be urgently addressed by systematic, long-term water quality monitoring;
The results of the testing must be fully disclosed in order to maintain the public’s confidence in the health and safety of their drinking water;
The development of appropriate, economically feasible plans for the protection of drinking water and for ensuring the healthy survival of aquatic life requires a robust dataset on the occurrence of pharmaceutical contaminants in water sources.
Below we address these points in detail.
1. The full spectrum of pharmaceuticals and related contaminants in the New York City drinking water supply is currently unknown; this gap must be urgently addressed by annual water quality monitoring.
The Associated Press investigation (“AP Probe Finds Drugs in Drinking Water,” March 9, 2008) brought to the attention of the public what the scientific literature has been documenting for a decade – our waters are polluted with a mixture of synthetic chemicals that have been designed to have powerful effects at very low concentrations. Of especial concern are human and veterinary medicines such as steroids, antibiotics, anti-depressants and hormones, which find their way into wastewater due to pharmaceuticals excreted by the body; disposal of unused drugs; farm fields treated with biosolids (sewage sludge); manure from animals fed antibiotics that is used as fertilizer; and industrial discharge from pharmaceutical manufacturing (AP (Associated Press) 2008).
There are no federal or state standards or monitoring requirements for the vast majority of these contaminants in drinking water or wastewater. While the health effects of these pharmaceuticals at therapeutic doses are relatively well-known, their ecological and public health impacts, especially their side effects and potential for synergism with other pollutants, remain to be addressed and cannot be dismissed (Jones 2003; Pringle 2008).
Some studies have suggested that for individual pharmaceuticals, a person would have to drink hundreds of gallons of water to get anywhere near a medical dose (Caldwell 2009; Snyder 2008). However, no study has so far addressed the cumulative human health risk posed by the mixtures of pharmaceuticals that we may ingest on a daily basis (Benotti M.J. 2009; Focazio 2008; Kingsbury 2008; Kolpin 2002). Meanwhile, according to the U.S. EPA, many drug classes of concern are found in the nation’s water sources, including (U.S. EPA 2009b):
Antibiotics and antimicrobials that may lead to the development of drug-resistant bacteria;
Estrogenic steroids that may affect the reproductive system in wildlife and people;
Antidepressants and calcium-channel blockers, which have been associated with effects on spawning in shellfish and “dramatic inhibition of sperm activity in certain aquatic organisms” (U.S. EPA 2009b);
Antiepileptic drugs such as phenytoin, valproate, carbamazepine that may act as human neuroteratogens and trigger cell death in the developing brain, which leads to neurodegeneration.
Genotoxic drugs that are primarily used at hospitals and have a high acute toxicity.
Scientists do not yet understand what impact all of these water pollutants will have on human and environmental health.
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