Watermark > Summer 2002 > Features: Pharmaceuticals, Hormones, and Other Organic Wastewater

Features

Pharmaceuticals, Hormones, and Other Organic Wastewater

Dana W. Kolpin, Edward T. Furlong, Michael T. Meyer, E. Michael Thurman, Steven D. Zaugg, Larry B. Barber, and Herbert T. Buxton

Introduction

The continued exponential growth in human population has created a corresponding increase in the demand for the Earth’s limited supply of freshwater. Thus, protecting the integrity of our water resources is one of the most essential environmental issues of the 21st century. Recent decades have brought increasing concerns for potential adverse human and ecological health effects resulting from the production, use, and disposal of numerous chemicals that offer improvements in industry, agriculture, medical treatment, and even common household conveniences.

Research has shown that many such compounds can enter the environment, disperse, and persist to a greater extent than first anticipated. Some compounds, such as pesticides, are intentionally released in measured applications. Others, such as industrial byproducts, are released through regulated and unregulated industrial discharges to water and air resources. Household chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and other consumables as well as biogenic hormones are released directly to the environment after passing through wastewater treatment processes (via wastewater treatment plants, or domestic septic systems), which often are not designed to remove them from the effluent Veterinary pharmaceuticals used in animal feeding operations may be released to the environment with animal wastes through overflow or leakage from storage structures or land application. As a result, there are a wide variety of transport pathways for many different chemicals to enter and persist in environmental waters.

Surprisingly, little is known about the extent of environmental occurrence, transport, and ultimate fate of many synthetic organic chemicals after their intended use, particularly hormonally active chemicals, personal care products, and pharmaceuticals that are designed to stimulate a physiological response in humans, plants, and animals. One reason for this general lack of data is that, until recently, there have been few analytical methods capable of detecting these compounds at low concentrations which might be expected in the environment Potential concerns from the environmental presence of these compounds include abnormal physiological processes and reproductive impairment, increased incidences of cancer , the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and the potential increased toxicity of chemical mixtures. For many substances, the potential effects on humans and aquatic ecosystems are not clearly understood.

The primary objective of this study is to provide the first nationwide reconnaissance of the occurrence of a broad suite of 95 organic wastewater contaminants (OWCs), including many compounds of emerging environmental concern, in streams across the United States. These OWCs are potentially associated with human, industrial, and agricultural wastewaters and include antibiotics, other prescription drugs, nonprescription drugs, steroids, reproductive hormones, personal care products, products of oil use and combustion, and other extensively used chemicals. The target OWCs were selected because they are expected to enter the environment through common wastewater pathways, are used in significant quantities, may have human or environmental health implications, are representative or potential indicators of certain classes of compounds or sources, and/or can be accurately measured in environmental samples using avail able technologies. Although these 95 OWCs are just a small subset of compounds being used by society, they represent a starting point for this investigation examining the transport of OWCs to water resources of the United States.