An ice floe of fresh water - click to embiggen
Not totally surprised by these results, but still interesting.
The Tribune finds trace amounts of drugs and chemicals—including anti-seizure medication and a Teflon ingredient— in Lake Michigan drinking water.
Chicago officials have never tested the city and suburban water supply for pharmaceuticals and other unregulated chemicals, even as concern grows about the possible health effects of trace amounts of drugs in drinking water.
[From What's in your water?]
Neon sign at NH Ballin Drugs Prescriptions - click to embiggen
[snip]
But water from a drinking fountain on the 7th floor of City Hall, just outside the Department of Streets and Sanitation, contained small amounts of carbamazepine, a prescription drug used to control epileptic seizures and treat bipolar disorder. Also found was acetaminophen, an over-the-counter painkiller.and more seriously:
Water from all three of the drinking fountains also contained small amounts of cotinine, a byproduct of nicotine. In addition, caffeine was found in the water from Sherman Elementary.
Because coffee and tobacco are widely consumed, researchers consider cotinine and caffeine to be indicators of other pharmaceuticals that could be found in human waste, similar to the way the presence of E. coli is used as a gauge of bacterial contamination in water.
The newspapers also had the lab test the region's top three brands of bottled water, Ice Mountain, Dasani and Aquafina, and no pharmaceuticals were found. A sample of Lake Michigan tap water passed through a Brita filter also tested negative.
Two industrial chemicals found in tap water tested for the Tribune, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), are unregulated substances that for decades were used to make Teflon and Scotchgard stick- and stain-resistant coatings.
Under pressure from the EPA, 3M stopped making the compounds in 2000, prompted by research that found the chemicals in human blood and in foods such as apples, bread, green beans and ground beef. DuPont still uses PFOA to make Teflon and related coatings, but agreed to stop manufacturing the chemical by 2015 after the EPA declared it likely causes cancer.
One recent study also linked exposure to the chemicals to low birth weights in newborns. The findings concern regulators because the compounds don't break down in the environment and stay in human blood for at least four years.
Drinking water is one potential source of exposure. Researchers studying the chemicals in the Great Lakes think that when carpets and clothing treated with PFOA and PFOS are cleaned, some of the residue washes into sewage treatment plants that are not equipped to remove them. Runoff from landfills and storms could be another source.
