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Water Resource Protection | Emerging Contaminants
Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products (PPCPs)

PPCP Impacts on Water Resources

One of NEIWPCC’s core goals is the coordination and implementation of research initiatives, both in conjunction with and on behalf of our member states. Research regarding pharmaceuticals and personal care products is a high priority to our member states as environmental and health officials at the federal, state, and local levels are increasingly in need of accurate, reliable data from which to make sound policy decisions.

The following are Research Areas of Interest as they relate to PPCPs in the aquatic environment and are topic of interest for future research projects:

Source Characterization

Occurrence, Transport, and Fate

Toxicology and Risk Assessment

Human  and Ecological Health

Identifying and ranking “compounds of concern”

Removal/Treatment (wastewater and drinking water)

Pollution Prevention

Impacts on Other NEIWPCC Programs

Water Utilities (Drinking Water and Wastewater)
As information about ECs and PPCPs become more readily available and scientifically accurate, water utilities like drinking water and wastewater treatment plants are answering new tough questions and facing increasing scrutiny as they are perceived as the vehicle for public PPCP exposure.

Aquatic Ecosystems
While information on the effects of long term low-dosage exposure of ECs and PPCPs on humans is still being collected, the effects on aquatic organisms and ecosystems has been observed, studied, and documented. A significant portion of these studies have focused on hormone disruption in aquatic organisms caused by exposure to trace organic compounds. An increase in the discovery of intersex organisms, i.e. fish having developed male and female reproductive organisms, has led scientists to question the environmental impact of low doses of hormones. The table below, taken from the Nov. 2008 AWWA Journal article “Emerging Compounds: A Concern for Water and Wastewater Utilities,” highlights some of the potential ecological effects of trace compounds found in wastewater effluent.

 

Class of Compound	Typical Concentration in Effluent	Potential Ecological or Human Health Effects	Examples
Pharmaceuticals	Up to 1 µg/L	Endocrine disrupting	Antibiotics, painkillers, caffeine, birth-control pill, antiepileptics
Personal care products	Up to 1 µg/L	Bioaccumulative, endocrine disrupting	Soaps, fragrances, triclosan
Detergent metabolites	Up to 180 µg/L	Bioaccumulative, endocrine disrupting	Ocylphenol, nonylphenol
Plasticizers	Up to 10 µg/L	Weakly endocrine disrupting	Phthalate esters, bisphenol A
Perfluorooctane surfactants	Up to 1 µg/L	None at environmentally relevant concentrations	Stain-resistant coating for clothing and furnature
Brominated flame retardants	Up to 30 µg/L	Bioaccumulative, suspended endocrine disruptors	Polybrominated diphenyl ethers
Disinfection by-products	Up to 1 µg/L	Carcinogenic	N-nitrosodimethylamine

 

Current Research and Databases

Ongoing projects

Environmental Protection Agency PPCP Research: http://www.epa.gov/ppcp/work.html

Environmental Protection Agency Effluent Limitation Guidelines: http://www.epa.gov/guide/304m/2008/hsi-icr-200807.html

Maine Department of Environmental Protection Surface Water Ambient Toxics Monitoring Program (SWAT): http://www.maine.gov/dep/blwq/docmonitoring/swat/index.htm

University of Rhode Island: http://www.uri.edu/news/releases/?id=4597

Environmental Protection Agency Expanded Investigations of Pharmaceuticals in Fish Tissue: http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/ppcp/studies/fish-expand.html

Databases

Environmental Protection Agency Relevant PPCP Literature: http://www.epa.gov/ppcp/lit.html

NOAA Pharmaceuticals in the Environment, Information for Assessing Risk: http://www.chbr.noaa.gov/peiar/

Environmental Protection Agency ECOTOX: http://cfpub.epa.gov/ecotox/

Clearinghouses of Studies/Reports

EPA Fish Tissue Study: http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/ppcp/studies/fish-tissue.html

EPA National Water-Quality Assessment Program, Source Water-Quality Assessment: http://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2008/5208/

NEIWPCC Sponsored Conferences

NEIWPCC’s 2007 Northeast Water Science Forum - Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products: State of the Science, a two-day intensive technical conference, was held August 8 - 9, 2007. Please visit the conference website to download the conference presentations.