Caffeine and a drug used to regulate blood sugar levels for people with Type 2 diabetes wash down the drain every day to become some of the most...

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Caffeine and a drug used to regulate blood sugar levels for people with Type 2 diabetes wash down the drain every day to become some of the most common unregulated contaminants in Iowa’s public drinking water, an IowaWatch investigation revealed. The presence of these contaminants is so minuscule that what a water-drinking consumer takes in is fairly minimal. But federal government officials are concerned about the contaminants because the risks of chronic ingestion of them are unclear, as the result of a lack of research to determine potential health risks for humans. Prescription drugs and caffeine contaminate rivers and streams treated to become drinking water. Many of these contaminants affect the human endocrine system, which produces hormones that regulate metabolism, growth and development, among other functions. Chemicals that affect the endocrine system exist in nature, but show up prominently in man-made products such as pharmaceuticals, plastics, detergents and cosmetics that people dump down a drain. These compounds commonly are referred to as emerging contaminants. Brittany Robb/IowaWatch The East River Station in Davenport, Iowa, pushes water back into the Mississippi River after being treated. Water in the pool on the right is to be mixed with treated water before going back into the river, while water in the pool on the left is to continue through the final stages of treatment. “Iowa is in a water quality crisis,” Des Moines Water Works communication coordinator Laura Sarcone said. She cited that facility’s increased use of an expensive nitrogen removal process and a record number of impaired waters as determined by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources as well as a growing concern about the impact of emerging contaminants. Some of the cities in Iowa most likely to be exposed to emerging contaminants include Des Moines, Davenport, Cedar Rapids, Sioux City, Iowa City and Keokuk. All use a high proportion of surface water, making them more susceptible to pharmaceuticals and endocrine-disrupting chemicals than cities that rely more on underground aquifers for drinking water. A new national study conducted by the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health analyzed data from the third round of unregulated contaminant monitoring and concluded that millions of Americans may be drinking water with unsafe levels of polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl substances. The contaminants come from industrial sites, wastewater treatment plants and military bases that conduct firefighting training. A little less than half of Iowa’s residents get drinking water from systems that use surface water or a combination of surface and groundwater. They are among the nine of 10 Iowans who use public water systems, with the remainder using private well services. Eight percent of Iowa’s public water systems use surface water, which is sometimes mixed with water from other sources, but they are in the most heavily populated areas. “Everything we use has the potential to become an environmental contaminant,” Dana Kolpin, a research hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said. “We use it. We excrete it. We wash it down the drain.” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency graphic; Guide: CEC — Contaminants of Emerging Concern Caffeine ends up in water from a number of sources, which are not limited to coffee and soft drinks. Soap, shampoo and even pantyhose can be caffeinated, and it’s this level of dependence on caffeine that makes it such a prevalent contaminant. Although water from our drains and toilets goes through a wastewater treatment plant, emerging contaminants can survive wastewater treatment and end up in surface water, which then can become source drinking water for communities downstream. There are so many potential contaminants to monitor from such an array of sources that trying to understand each one can be overwhelming for researchers and treatment facilities. It is hard to narrow down what to focus on, considering the low priority level that most facilities give to emerging contaminants. Tim Wilkey, superintendent of the Iowa City wastewater treatment plant, said pharmaceuticals and caffeine can pass through the treatment process but only at minute levels. Treated water from Iowa City’s plant washes into the Iowa River, which feeds into the Mississippi River and continues downstream. Brittany Robb/IowaWatch; Tim Wilkey, superintendent of the Iowa City Wastewater Treatment plant, describes that plant’s treatment process to IowaWatch on June 24, 2016. Some wastewater and drinking water treatment plants use a treatment process called activated carbon, which is effective in preventing emerging contaminants from permeating drinking water supplies. This treatment process uses carbon to attract unwanted organic compounds such as caffeine through adsorption, leaching those compounds out of the finished water. Activated carbon also is used in air filtration and other purification applications. Read more at: Iowa watch

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3 Comments

  1. @Terry, I agree that pharmaceuticals ​are only a ​small part, but their consequences are unknown yet and also what concentration should be a problem for humans. I had been at Sttugart University two year ago, they was studying how can determinated small concentration in the water.

    1 Comment reply

    1. @ Correia 

      Plant uptake of pharmaceutical and personal care products from recycled water and biosolids: a review

      http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969715304708

      Reuse of treated wastewater for agricultural irrigation is growing in arid and semi-arid regions, while increasing amounts of biosolids are being applied to fields to improve agricultural outputs. These historically under-utilized resources contain “emerging contaminants”, such as pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs), which may enter agricultural soils and potentially contaminate food crops. In this review, we summarize recent research and provide a detailed overview of PPCPs in the soil–plant systems, including analytical methods for determination of PPCPs in plant tissues, fate of PPCPs in agricultural soils receiving treated wastewater irrigation or biosolids amendment, and plant uptake of PPCPs under laboratory and field conditions. Mechanisms of uptake and translocation of PPCPs and their metabolisms in plants are also reviewed. Field studies showed that the concentration levels of PPCPs in crops that were irrigated with treated wastewater or applied with biosolids were very low. Potential human exposure to PPCPs through dietary intake was discussed. Information gaps and questions for future research have been identified in this review.

      Irrigation of Root Vegetables with Treated Wastewater: Evaluating Uptake of Pharmaceuticals and the Associated Human Health Risks

      http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es5017894

  2. The Emerging Contaminates are becoming an issue, as we devise better methods of determining the amount of the contaminate in our waters. The streams around Boston are contaminated with Amphetamines(man made), which is a concern for the Ecology of those streams and the re-use of the water. 214 million Americans across the country have water contaminated with Hexavalent Chromium(man made). MTBE's in all of Rhode Island's ground water(man made). PFC's in 106 million Americans water, ground and Municipal(man made). Elevated Nitrates surface and ground water through out the Mid-west(the 12"-25" layer of soil holds up to 50 times the Nitrates of the upper layer, (man made). Elevated Lead levels in all 50 states some much higher than Flint, MI.(thank to Chloramine(man made). 

     Pharmaceuticals are only a small part of what is happening!

  3. We should be careful about what goes down the toilet, but caffeine is certainly not one of the concerns. One cup of american coffee contains about 1 million times the amount of caffeine that you would find in a standard impacted surface water. Caffeine in water is a reasonable indicator of sewage in source water. Sucralose is a better marker because it does not degrade, nor is it metabolized, so it is very safe.   Pharmaceuticals in drinking water  are certainly very undesirable, but they come primarily from human shedding rather than from toilet disposal of drugs. WHO has concluded that pharmaceuticals in drinking water are not a significant health concern with very rare exceptions. Pharmaceuticals could be a concern in ambient waters because of the effects on some fish who spend their lives in the water. We don't