Lakes and Oceans No Longer Hide Our Carelessness

punch1

AC Members
Sep 25, 2008
13
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For me - as one of the individuals instramental in the research, development, formulation, and registration of ag chemicals - this new release from CHicago is a sobering reality check - especially in the levels shown of carbofuran, simazine, atrazine, ddt. - further - it stands as proof that the feds will be forced to develop max allowable standards for a large area of hormonal- antidepressant - and associated precrip meds - the cost of testing, treating, removal, etc will become enormous.. Just think what it is doing to the aquatic life... and this is only a few page sample of the test results.

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noob question.....

how are that many pharms getting into DRINKING water? I mean I can see through urine but that wouldnt be drinking water....

I know that SOME probaby end up thrown on the ground, in drains/lakes etc but I wouldnt think people throw out enough prescription drugs to make much of an impact
 
It is what is passed in urine. I have heard that hormones from birth control pills are causing men's levels of testosterone to drop. 80% of the drug is passed in urine.
 
urine and throwing old pills down the toilet and the waste water ends up in the streams and rivers etc,.. all goes to the same place,..
 
A lot of people don't know what to do with expired/unused meds. TAKE THEM TO YOUR LOCAL PHARMACY! Most pharmacies now have programs in place to deal with these things. DON'T just flush them or throw them away.
 
In Chicago after the water is treated it goes back into the lake. They don't strip out the meds. All of Chicago's drinking water is from lake Michigan. It is one large cycle.

What is crazy is how HUGE the lake is and that they can still detect these things (even if in small quantities).
 
Everyone should be concerned about drugs and chemicals entering food and water supplies. (Though some seem oblivious to the fact, if you flush it down the toilet, you will eventually eat or drink it, or its byproducts). That said, I think some may be misreading the provided reports. With a couple of exceptions the reports are saying that most listed items are undetected. Water quality reports customarily report parameters as less then the threshold of the test (hence the <) to let the reader know that the drug, chemical etc may be present but at levels that are undetectable by the administered test.
 
I was thinking the same thing Canuck... It appears to me the only thing detected were (on the printed pages anyway):

Gemfibrozil .0000012
DEET .000006
Cotinine .000003
 
So would a Brita filter take care of the 'stuff' found in the Chicago drinking water?

I know several months ago news stations in Chicago ran a report on detected prescriptions found in the drinking water. I'm not sure what report the news stations used, but there was anti seziure medication, antibiotics and birth control pill medications found in the drinking water. They were not at high levels, but the news media did encourage everyone to bring their old RXs to special facilities in chicago that would dispose of old medication.

I used to flush my old meds down the toilet (but that was when I had a septic system).
 
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