What's in your water? Chicago Tribune April 16, 2008

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www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-chicago-water-testapr17,0,5971024.story chicagotribune.com TRIBUNE

SPECIAL REPORT What's

in your water? The

Tribune finds trace amounts of drugs and chemicals—including anti-seizure

medication and a Teflon ingredient— in Lake Michigan drinking water. By

Hawthorne and ia Elejalde-Ruiz

Tribune reporters

11:42 PM CDT, April 16, 2008 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.

So the Tribune and RedEye did the testing the city won't do.

The newspapers hired an independent lab, which found tiny amounts of an

anti-seizure drug, a common painkiller, caffeine and two chemicals used to make

Teflon and Scotchgard in samples taken from a water supply that serves 7

million people.

Trace concentrations—measured in parts per trillion—were found in

water collected at City Hall, an elementary school on Chicago's South Side and

a public library in Waukegan, which has its own treatment plant.

The Tribune's findings echo what authorities have detected in tap water

supplies elsewhere in the country: dozens of prescription and over-the-counter

drugs as well as chemicals from personal-care products, food packaging,

clothing and household goods.

The tests do not show that drinking water is unsafe. But they do raise

important questions for regulators and city officials aware of growing concerns

about potential health effects from long-term exposure to drugs in our drinking

water, even at very low levels.

"There are many unknowns," said Dana Kolpin, a researcher at the U.S.

Geological Survey who conducted some of the first tests that found

pharmaceuticals in municipal water supplies. "On one hand, levels of

specific substances are very low and appear to be nothing to worry about. But

the question is whether mixtures of many substances could build to a point

where there could be some harmful effects."

Drugs end up in drinking water after people take medications and some of the

residue passes through their bodies. Conventional sewage and drinking water

treatment filter out some of the substances, or at least reduce the

concentrations, but multiple studies have found small amounts get

through.Responding to the findings in other cities, Gov. Rod Blagojevich

announced last month that the state would test tap water in

Chicago and a handful of Downstate

communities for the first time. Chicago doesn't plan to conduct its own tests unless required to do so by federal

regulators, according to a March 7 letter sent by the Department of Water

Management in response to a Tribune inquiry.

Using sampling techniques and containers provided by the

University of Iowa Hygienic

Laboratory , Tribune reporters took samples on

March 17 from drinking fountains at City Hall, Sherman Elementary on the South

Side, and the Waukegan Public Library. Water from a tap at

Tribune Tower also was filtered through a household filter before collection.

The water samples were shipped to the Iowa lab and analyzed for nearly 40 different compounds, including regulated pesticides

and heavy metals and unregulated prescription and non-prescription drugs.

The tests did not reveal the presence of most of the contaminants 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.

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.

City officials stress the region's tap water supply is safe. And federal

regulators contend they don't have enough evidence to limit pharmaceuticals or

many other unregulated chemicals in the environment or in drinking water.

Medical experts, meanwhile, say there is no reason to stop drinking tap water.

The Tribune informed the city about the test results April 3. City officials

have since declined to answer questions in person or over the telephone. In a

three-paragraph e-mail response, they questioned the newspaper's collection

methods and touted the city's efforts to safely dispose of unused

pharmaceuticals.

"The quantities you say were found are extremely minute, and pose no known

hazard," the city's statement read. "Nevertheless, we are aware of

this new area of scientific interest, and we are working with government

regulators and the scientific community to help develop tests and protocols to

ensure the safety of our water source and the treated water we deliver to our

customers."

Most of the Lake Michigan drinking water consumed in Illinois is treated by

Chicago, then piped to outlying suburbs, which do nothing more to treat it.

Waukegan is among a handful of

North Shore communities with its own treatment plant. Jeff Musinski, the plant's director,

suggested the cotinine, Teflon and Scotchgard chemicals found in a sample drawn

from the Waukegan library could have been inadvertently left by custodians

while cleaning the drinking fountain—a theory rejected by the Iowa lab

that performed the tests.

He also acknowledged Waukegan has not tested drinking water for the same compounds.

"This isn't a problem," Musinski said. "But it is a problem if

your reporting erodes public confidence in our water supply."

The Tribune's testing cannot tell the full story of what chemicals might exist

in a glass of water drawn from your tap. The number of samples was small, the

lab tested for only a certain number of substances and the findings were

different for each sample.

Experts, though, say the discovery of any unregulated chemicals signals they

are commonly present in Lake Michigan , the

region's chief source of drinking water. The substances likely have been there

for as long as they've been used; they just weren't detected until analytical

methods improved.

Many of these drugs and chemicals end up in the environment after flowing

through sewage treatment plants. People absorb some of the medicine in every

pill they take. The rest passes through their bodies, flushes down the toilet

and eventually washes into water supplies.

Even though treated sewage from the Chicago area

drains away from Lake Michigan , there are more

than 300 other cities that dump treated waste into the lake and its

tributaries, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

There has been little study of pharmaceuticals in Lake

Michigan . But recent tests of treated sewage that

Milwaukee pumps into the lake found several

drugs, including carbamazepine, acetaminophen and tetracycline, a commonly

prescribed antibiotic.

"You found some of the same things we are finding out there," said

Klaper, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Great

Lakes Water Institute.

Last month, The Associated Press reported test results from two dozen cities

where drugs were found in drinking water. But the EPA does not require

utilities to test for pharmaceuticals, and most of the cities that have conducted

their own studies have been reluctant to share the results.

Milwaukee is a

notable exception. Since 1993, when Cryptosporidium parasites in

Milwaukee 's water killed

more than 100 people and sickened 400,000 others, the city has aggressively

tested for unregulated contaminants. Last year, it added dozens of

pharmaceuticals to the list.

The city's water department now tests for 450 unregulated contaminants twice a

year and posts the results on its Web site. Several compounds were found last

year in Lake Michigan , including caffeine, two

antibiotics and gemfibrozil, a cholesterol-fighting drug. Small amounts of

cotinine and the antibiotic lincomycin were found in treated drinking water,

but not carbamazepine or acetaminophen.

"We believe strongly in full disclosure," said ,

superintendent of the Milwaukee Water Works. "We've got an educated

audience out there that wants all the information we can give them."

Vargo, the environmental program manager at the

University of Iowa lab that conducted the Tribune's tests, said he has found traces of

carbamazepine, acetaminophen and other pharmaceuticals in the drinking water of

other Midwestern cities. He declined to reveal the specific locations, citing

confidentiality agreements written into the lab's contracts.

Carbamazepine, cotinine and caffeine also have been frequently found in

drinking water tested by the U.S. Geological Survey and the American Water

Works Association, a utility trade group. Acetaminophen has been detected, too,

though less frequently.

Other researchers are trying to figure out which drugs pose the greatest health

risks. Some over-the-counter medications might be found in higher

concentrations in drinking water, for instance, but small amounts of

chemotherapy drugs and birth control pills could prove to be more toxic.

Moreover, there are many drugs, pesticides, detergents and other chemicals that

mimic human hormones. These substances, known collectively as endocrine

disrupters, are seen as potential contributors to various types of cancer,

birth defects and developmental problems.

"What we are seeing are the inconvenient consequences of a convenient

lifestyle," said Conrad Volz, a researcher at the

University of Pittsburgh who studies environmental hazards. "Given what we already know about many

of these compounds, there is reason for concern."

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.

But while these chemicals and pharmaceuticals keep showing up nearly everywhere

researchers look, federal officials say they still don't know enough to

regulate them.

"This is a growing concern, and we are taking it very seriously,"

said Grumbles, the EPA's assistant administrator for water. "I

think we're asking all of the right questions. We just don't have the answers

yet."

Klaper, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee researcher, said Great Lakes

scientists have drafted several proposals to conduct more study of

pharmaceuticals in Lake Michigan . The EPA

declined to fund the work.

Hawthorne is a Tribune reporter.

ia Elejalde-Ruiz is a reporter for the Tribune's RedEye edition.

mhawthorne@...

aelejalderuiz@...

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