Progress Illinois

A number of recent newspaper articles have reported on the presence of trace amounts of pharmaceuticals and other chemicals in our water supply, both here in Illinois and nationally.

Hormones from birth control pills and Viagra. Chemicals such as DEET from insect repellent. Drugs such as painkillers and Prozac. All of the above have been found in very small amounts (parts per trillion) in water samples taken from Chicago area waterways.

We really shouldn’t be surprised. Think about how many drugs we take: from prescription medications such as antibiotics, cancer treatments, and anti-depressants, to over-the-counter products like vitamins, nasal decongestants, and ibuprofen. It's gotten to the point where major pharmaceutical companies are now developing two new drugs for dogs – one to address obesity and another to help with sleep problems.

These substances are entering our waterways because people flush unused or expired medicine down the toilet and because we excrete what our bodies don’t absorb.

“Water that dinosaurs drank is still consumed by humans,” wrote Michael Spector in a New Yorker article titled “The Last Drop.” But dinosaurs didn’t have to contend with plastic or synthetic molecules or PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls). These we’ve invented and added to our landscape. So, though the amount of freshwater on Earth has not changed significantly for millions of years, what we’ve added to the water in the form of chemicals and pollution has made it more costly and difficult to purify.

The water available to dinosaurs circulated through the natural hydrologic cycle of rain, evaporation, filtration, groundwater recharge, and so on. Worked awfully well for eons. But humans, grand inventors that we are, tinkered with the system: reversing and damming rivers, drilling deeper and deeper to reach “fossil” water stored in underground bedrock, and adding untold amounts of chemicals and plastics. This means that the water on earth we pass on to our children and grandchildren will not be as pure, as clean, as healthy as we found it. It will cost more to filter and treat. Some of it may even be rendered undrinkable.

Mind you, these “emerging chemicals of concern” are found in very minute quantities. Take the amount of ibuprofen identified in our water supply: one would have to drink a gallon a day for 144 years to consume the equivalent of one 200 mg tablet. Nonetheless, these chemicals are mixed in our lakes and streams in ways we don’t mix them in our bodies. Some studies have also begun to show detrimental effects – such as feminization of fish -- from exposure to hormones in rivers and streams. So it’s something that scientists are monitoring.

As with most pollution, however, it’s always much cheaper to stop it at the source than to try to remove it once it’s contaminated our lands or natural resources.

So what can you do about drugs in the water?

First, crush don’t flush. If you have unused or expired medicines that you want to dispose of safely, take them out of their container, crush them and mix them with coffee grounds or kitty litter, and toss them out with your garbage. That’s what the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommends.

Even better, take your excess meds to a hazardous waste collection day in your area, so that they can be incinerated safely by the EPA at a special facility. For instance, the city of Chicago operates a permanent collection facility on Goose Island at 1150 N. North Branch Street. Additionally, a number of municipalities in northern Cook County collect pharmaceuticals through a program sponsored by the Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County.

And how can local and state governments address this problem?

The challenge is to develop a collection program for unused and expired medicines that is safe, secure, and easy for people to use. The state of Maine is experimenting with a pilot mailback program, much like the recycle bags one receives with the purchase of an inkjet cartridge. Other locales are testing take-back programs at pharmacies, though these currently face a number of regulatory hurdles.

Right now, pharmaceuticals in our water are a very small problem, but we need to do what we can to keep it from growing. I've been drinking Chicago tap water for years and am grateful for it. Now I want to find a way to keep our water supply as clean and plentiful as possible, so future generations can play with plastic dinosaurs and still drink the water.

Debra Shore sits on the Board of Commissioners of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago. She is also founding editor of Chicago WILDERNESS Magazine and a leader in the regional conservation consortium known as Chicago Wilderness.