As the
Senate subcommittee on Transportation Safety, Infrastructure Security and Water
Quality is hearing in testimony today, pharmaceuticals are emerging as a
serious concern for our nation’s drinking water supplies. Congress should require the multibillion
dollar pharmaceutical industry to prevent its products from further
contaminating our drinking water, or to pay for the cost of removing them.
It’s simple: every American should
be able to go to their kitchen sink and pour a glass of water that is
drug-free.
Recent
reports by the Associated Press confirmed long-held concerns that a wide range
of pharmaceuticals - including antibiotics, anti-depressants, and sex hormones
- are winding up in numerous major drinking water supplies across the
country. There are several reasons to be
deeply concerned by this contamination:
- Most
pharmaceuticals are specifically designed to be biologically active at very low
concentrations;
- While
physicians carefully prescribe medications– limiting dose, drug interactions,
and screening patients with risk of adverse reaction – none of these safeguards
apply when adults and children unwittingly drink water containing
pharmaceuticals.
- Widespread
exposure to antibiotics increases the risk that pathogens will develop further
resistance to one or more of them; and
- Several
common pharmaceuticals – from birth control pills to steroids – affect hormone levels. The U.S. Geological Survey has found an
alarming level of reproductive deformities in fish near heavy farming and
population centers in the Potomac watershed.
With
thousands of chemicals and other variables to consider, it might be decades
before we can determine the full extent of these and other risks posed by drugs
in drinking water. But if we have
learned anything from other environmental threats – PCBs, mercury, global
warming – it is that waiting for a full account of risks invites irreparable
harm and increases the cost of cleanup. Moreover,
waiting for proof that pharmaceuticals are causing harm in our drinking water is
contrary to decades of drug safety policy in this country, where drugs are
supposed to be proven “safe” before coming to market.
Now is the
time to start getting drugs out of our water.
Environment America recommends the following measures
to address this problem:
First, the pharmaceutical industry should prevent the unnecessary flow of its
products into our nation’s rivers, bays, lakes and streams. Where
feasible, drug companies should re-engineer their products for more efficient
human and animal intake, so that less excess active ingredients are flushed
into water systems.
Second, in
cases where the makers of pharmaceuticals and personal care products cannot
prevent pollution on the front end, then they should be required to pay for
removing their chemicals from our water systems on the back end. Our nation’s water and sewage treatment
facilities are already financially strained and falling behind on upgrades and
repairs. Adding advanced treatment for removing pharmaceuticals will only be
possible if this multibillion dollar industry pays its fair share of the cost.
Third, we
need to reduce the unnecessary use of antibiotics and hormonal treatments –
especially in livestock operations.
Finally,
this emerging pharmaceutical threat should remind Congress and the Bush
administration of the myriad other threats to our waters – and the need to
dramatically increase the funding for Clean Water and Drinking Water State
Revolving Funds (SRF). EPA has projected
that communities across the country will need to spend nearly $400 billion over
the next 20 years to improve sewage treatment systems in order to preserve
water quality. To help ensure clean water, Congress should significantly
increase funding for the Clean Water and Drinking Water SRFs and prioritize
funding for Clean Water SRF projects that utilize green infrastructure to
reduce polluted runoff.
The
pharmaceutical companies need to step up and help keep prescription drugs and
other medicine out of our water.
Clean, safe
water should be a right, not a privilege, for all Americans. But even as the
Clean Water Act celebrates its 35th year, pharmaceutical pollution
is the latest reminder that achieving that goal will require a renewed national
commitment – from government, industry, and citizens.
