publications and resources
Interstate Water Report
 |
| Download PDF of current issue |
Current Issue
Growing Concern
Forum in Maine Reveals What We Know About PPCPs
by Stephen Hochbrunn, NEIWPCC
Go to the new Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products section on EPA’s website, click on “Frequent Questions,” and you find this: “The importance of individuals adding chemicals to the environment has been largely overlooked.” That appears to have changed. Judging by the number of people at the 2007 Northeast Water Science Forum and their intense interest in the discussions, the issue of PPCPs is not being overlooked anymore.
“I want to be informed about PPCPs,” said Jeanne Christie, executive director of the Association of State Wetland Managers, and one of more than 150 conference-goers who filled an expansive room at the Holiday Inn By the Bay in Portland, Maine, for the forum on August 8 and 9. NEIWPCC took the lead role in developing and coordinating the event, which carried the theme “Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products: State of the Science.” It brought together scientists, regulators, water and wastewater professionals, environmental advocates, industry experts, and others to disseminate and evaluate the latest scientific information on PPCPs in the water environment.
“This conference is providing an opportunity for an interdisciplinary approach to PPCPs,” said Nicholas Anastas of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, and a member of the conference planning team. “It’s bringing together a wide range of people to discuss an emerging issue that needs attention.”
Anastas, who also spoke at the conference, was looking to broaden his already extensive knowledge of the topic. Others, such as Christie, were there to get a basic understanding. “I’m just trying to figure it all out,” she said.
Both came to the right place. Throughout the forum, the talk was about nothing but PPCPs—what we’ve learned about their presence in surface waters and groundwater, and their effects on aquatic and human health; what we’ve discovered about how to treat and remove them from the waste stream; and what we know about how to keep them out of wastewater in the first place through drug take-back programs and other -initiatives. As the conference went on, one thing became clear: while there’s a lot we know about PPCPs, there’s a lot left to be learned. But to wait to do anything about them until our knowledge base is complete would be a mistake.
As Robert Varney, EPA New England’s Regional Administrator, said in his opening remarks, “We know there are significant data gaps that need to be filled. We recognize there are many unknowns. But let’s move forward while the questions are being answered.”
Grounds for Examination
As a field of research, the study of PPCPs in the environment is relatively young. The term PPCP itself has only been in use since 1999, when it appeared in a review published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. Around some basic details, there is no dispute. PPCPs, which include everything from anti-depressants to caffeine and the chemicals in your favorite shampoo, are produced and used in large quantities. They enter the environment when they are excreted, flushed down the toilet, rinsed down the drain, or put in the trash. Once in the environment, the chemicals appear in very low concentrations. What researchers are still trying to determine is the specific risks the low concentrations pose, to both aquatic organisms and to humans.
One of those researchers, Dr. Rolf Halden of Johns Hopkins University, delivered the conference’s first presentation. “Most of the chemicals in your shampoo and other personal products,” Halden said, “have not been adequately tested for toxicity.”
As an example, he cited triclosan, the active ingredient in popular soaps labeled “antibacterial.” According to Halden, a study in Maryland found that all but 3 percent of the triclosan entering a wastewater treatment plant was removed in the treatment process, but that doesn’t mean it all disappeared. He said about half of the triclosan in the influent ended up in the plant’s biosolids, the treated sludge destined to be applied to farmland as fertilizer.
“This may not be a problem, but maybe it is,” Halden said. “What is the half life of triclosan? Are there earthworms ingesting it, which are then eaten by birds, and the chemical makes its way up the food chain?”
Halden is seeking the answers, and like Varney, he’s urging action while the research advances. Educate people about the potential toxicity of triclosan, he said, and they may decide against paying a premium to buy products containing it—especially when they realize what that premium’s buying them.
“There are no benefits from triclosan for the average consumer,” Halden said. “Regular soap works just as well as an antimicrobial, plus we know it’s benign environmentally and has been used safely for centuries.”
Information Source
The U.S. Geological Survey cosponsored the Portland forum, no surprise given it’s produced some of the finest and most influential research to come out on PPCPs. In 2002, USGS published a landmark study showing that half of the 139 streams the agency sampled nationwide contained seven or more organic wastewater contaminants, including antibiotics and synthetic hormones. USGS has also conducted significant research on contaminants known as endocrine disruptors, because they can interfere with hormonal activity and disrupt functions such as reproduction. In January 2007, for example, the agency reported that endocrine disruptors such as flame retardants and a banned fungicide were found in Potomac River tributaries, and that the chemicals may be to blame for all the male smallmouth bass in the waters that are exhibiting female characteristics.
In his presentation at the forum, USGS’s Edward Furlong didn’t touch on the January report, but did discuss several USGS studies currently underway. In Boulder Creek, Colorado, samples taken at a wastewater treatment plant’s point of discharge showed a surge in levels of the female sex hormone estradiol in the water. “Downstream, there were still significant levels,” Furlong said, “and they were always above the effects level.”
Furlong was referring to levels that could potentially affect fish, but among the public, the burning question is whether people can possibly be affected. On its website, EPA emphasizes that, “to date, no evidence has been found of human health effects from PPCPs in the environment.” But the impact on humans is still an open question, and scientists—in the United States and elsewhere—are continually learning more about PPCPs and their effects.
Are we in the U.S. learning fast enough? For years, some of the best research on PPCPs has come out of Europe—as USGS’s Pat Phillips, one of the Northeast’s top experts on the environmental impact of PPCPs, pointed out during an IWR interview in November 2005. At the Portland forum, Phillips said during an interview that the amount of PPCP research in this country is improving.
“We’re starting to do better,” said Phillips, who spoke at the forum and also served on the planning team. “The Europeans are progressing too, but we’re catching up.”
Federal Attention
The presence of EPA officials at the forum spoke to that agency’s growing interest. In addition to Varney, Octavia Conerly from EPA’s Office of Water in Washington delivered a presentation. Her focus—the work done and yet to be done.
“We did recently set a standard for nonylphenol,” Conerly said, referring to EPA’s release in 2006 of the safe levels in water for one particular chemical that’s known to harm aquatic life. “But we do have a long way to go in terms of setting standards for other PPCPs.”
To set standards, EPA needs data, and the Office of Water has embarked on several key projects, including a national pilot study of PPCPs in fish. Researchers are sampling for 37 PPCPs in fish tissue from five U.S. streams at locations where the effluent from a wastewater treatment plant dominates the flow. According to Conerly, that analysis should be finished by the end of the year. The Office of Water is also sampling for pharmaceuticals, including steroids and hormones, in the influent, effluent, and sludge of a number of publicly owned wastewater treatment plants around the country. Look for that study to be complete by December 2009.
Will we ever move from research to regulation? At a Congressional hearing in Washington in late 2006, lawmakers chided EPA officials, including Assistant Administrator for Water Ben Grumbles, for taking too long to determine if the presence in the Potomac River of male fish with female sexual characteristics was a sign that PPCPs were in the water at a level that could harm humans. U.S. Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., was quoted as saying, “It seems [the EPA] looks for any excuse it can find to delay the implementation of regulations that could affect public health.” Grumbles acknowledged the concerns, but emphasized that the issues were complex, that more information was needed about how compounds interact.
EPA has also taken criticism from some corners for its work with other government agencies on new guidelines for the disposal of unused prescription drugs. The guidelines, which were released under the banner of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, include a list of drugs that the government advises users to flush down the toilet rather than throw in the trash. The list includes notoriously abused drugs such as OxyContin; the Office of National Drug Control Policy believes that by flushing them, they won’t end up in the wrong hands. The National Association of Clean Water Agencies criticized the idea for its potential to increase the flushing of all drugs, not just those on the list. Flushing of course puts drugs in the waste stream, where they all too easily end up in waterways.
During an interview at the forum, EPA’s Conerly said the agency had to go along with the flushing guidelines. “The Food and Drug Administration wants [the 13 drugs on the list] to be flushed,” she said. “Right now, we had no other choice.”
But Conerly said EPA wants to come up with a better solution. “We need to come up with a way that the public can dispose of the drugs,” she said, “maybe through a national take-back program. That would be a multi-agency effort.”
With multiple agencies involved, such a federal program is a long way off, if it happens at all. But take-back programs on a smaller scale already exist, and were a hot topic at the forum. Ann Pistell of Maine’s Department of Environmental Protection spoke about Maine’s pharmaceutical mail-back legislation and the state’s practice of holding large one-day drug collection events. Rebecca Walter of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency discussed that state’s impressive Healthcare Hazardous Waste Initiative. Through educational workshops and enforcement actions, Minnesota has dramatically reduced the amount of pharmaceuticals and other hazardous wastes improperly disposed of by healthcare facilities. For example, Minnesota is now recycling the 25,000 gallons of formalin, a hazardous fixative, that used to end up in its sewers every year.
Learning Experience
With more than 30 presentations over two days, the forum provided participants with a lot of information to absorb. Too much, perhaps, had it not been for the ardent interest. Throughout the conference, the long rows of chairs stayed filled as speakers such as the Silent Spring Institute’s Laurel Standley engaged listeners with stories and science.
“Clearly we have a link,” Standley said, as she described a study of contamination in ponds on Cape Cod that are fed primarily by groundwater, rather than rivers and streams. “In ponds surrounded by residential development serviced by septic tanks, we found hormones and pharmaceuticals in the water, at low levels.” The link was so clear because few if any PPCPs were found in ponds in low residential density areas. Obviously PPCPs were moving through septic systems to groundwater and into ponds, with the potential for biological implications. What about drinking water wells that might pull from the same groundwater? “It’s best to locate wells as far from septic systems as possible,” Standley said. “But that’s hard to do in high residential density areas.”
At this stage in this field of study, nobody has all the answers—especially when there are so many questions. The issue of PPCPs in biosolids, which Rolf Halden raised in the opening presentation, came up again on the second day as USGS’s James Gray delivered a compelling talk on his research. Gray and his research partners collected and analyzed liquid and solids samples from five U.S. wastewater treatment plants to determine how different treatment processes affected the degradation of hormones. While the study won’t be published until 2008, Gray discussed some preliminary results. He’s found that while the plants’ biological treatment can remove up to 90 percent of hormones from liquids, the plants’ treated biosolids are enriched in hormones by comparison. Of course, we’re talking about very low levels, but the levels don’t have to be high to be a concern.
“I wouldn’t say this issue has been overlooked,” said Gray in an interview. “But we now have the analytical technology for measuring these compounds at the very low levels where they are biologically relevant. It’s very challenging though, and we’re still refining the methods.” EPA is also looking closely at this issue; earlier this year, the agency added PPCPs to the contaminants it’s looking for in biosolids examined in its National Sewage Sludge Survey. Contrary to Gray’s research, however, EPA’s results are not expected anytime soon.
Spirited question-and-answer sessions followed each presentation, and NEIWPCC’s Marianna Vulli, the coordinator of our Regional Research Initiative, moved quickly about the room, bringing a microphone to the questioners. Vulli displayed the same energy she showed throughout the preparations for the conference, as she led the effort to make it a reality. The end result was clearly appreciated.
“It’s great that NEIWPCC put this conference together to allow us all to share information,” said Shayne Mitchell of New York State’s Bureau of Water Permits.
Praise came from the private sector attendees as well. “It’s good to get a background about the problem,” said Hatim Fadlalla of the environmental engineering firm, Wright-Pierce. “We are anticipating that this will be a hot issue in the years to come.”
“It was a terrific two days,” said NEIWPCC’s Vulli. “I was thrilled by the greater than excepted turnout, which tells me that we made the right decision to dedicate this forum to this topic at this time. And we couldn’t have done it without our planning team, which succeeded in developing a robust agenda that brought together a terrific group of speakers. I believe we achieved what we set out to do, which was to provide attendees with a foundation for understanding the issue of PPCPs in the water environment.”
This was the first Northeast Water Science Forum, and its success invigorated plans to make it a regular event. NEIWPCC is now exploring topics for the next edition, and as details become available, they will be posted on our website (www.neiwpcc.org). For more on the PPCP forum, including access to many of the presentations and a directory of attendees, go to www.neiwpcc.org/ppcpconference.
At NEIWPCC we are committed to following developments in the PPCP arena, and to keeping our member states informed through our website, publications, and Commission and workgroup meetings. As was made clear by the experience in Portland, it’s a topic people want to know about and need to know about. Overlooked? No more.