News of the Arroyo
Title: | Impurities in the water |
Subtitle: | |
Date: | 2008-03-22 |
Summary: | March 22, 2008 - The editor of the PSN discusses how to view recent stories about the presence of trace amounts of pharmaceuticals and other contaminants in our drinking water. |
Author: | Editorial |
Publication: | Pasadena Star-News |
Content: | HOW pure is our drinking water? It depends on your definition of \"pure.\" According to an Associated Press report, Americans\' drinking water contains traces of a vast range of pharmaceuticals. But don\'t panic. You\'d have to live more than 8,500 years to accumulate the equivalent of one dose of Prozac, sex hormone, aspirin or whatever. The problem is not that these are new to our drinking water, so much as newly developed technology can measure substances in such tiny amounts as parts per trillion. That makes it harder to look at a glass of water the same way, but easier to monitor water quality. Still, even though the drug traces are tiny, they could impact human health. Drug traces in waterways have caused abnormalities in aquatic life and earthworms. Rather than just react with alarm at such findings, we should insist that the latest techniques be used to help resolve the problems they discover. One thing consumers can do is not flush old prescription drugs down the toilet. That puts whatever the drug is into the wastewater, which gets treated down the line and some of it does percolate back into our underground aquifers. Consumers should take old drug vials to a household hazardous waste collection round-up, where they are taken as waste and buried in a hazardous waste landfill. Remembering that we are part of the water cycle is part of the solution, especially today when our water supply has been limited by weather, global warming and environmental management actions in Northern California. |
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