Pharmaceutical chemicals invade the environment By Curt Andersen News-Chronicle Most people have already been concerned about pesticides in our water for many years, with some people having suspicions about their effects even before the publication of Rachel Carson’s stunning Silent Spring back in the 1960s. Now there is concern about pharmaceutical chemicals being released in treated wastewater. Drugs including estrogens from birth control pills, estrogen replacement drugs, ibuprofen, sunscreen, and antibiotics, to name only a few, might end up in your next glass of water. These chemicals were originally thought to be a result of people throwing their outdated prescription medicine into the toilet, but now it’s also thought to come directly from our urine, which contains the unused portion of the drug, perhaps as high as 20% of the total. This in turn makes me question eating fish or animals affected by these chemicals. We have an official Vicious Circle. There is concern that these estrogens are causing irregularities in fish and animal health and populations. According to a CNN report, Marsha Black, an aquatic toxicologist at the University of Georgia in Athens, found that low levels of common anti-depressants, including Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil and Celexa, may cause developmental problems in fish, and metamorphosis delays in frogs. Timing is a crucial factor in the development of frogs. The eggs tend to be laid in puddles and ponds that dry up as spring nears an end. If the ponds dry up too quickly, the eggs or tadpoles die or leave them vulnerable to predators. Estrogens may cause delays in frog egg development. Because frogs are a food source for shorebirds, sport fish, and people, and because they eat mosquitoes, a dramatic decline of their population could disrupt populations of their predators and the bug we love to hate. There is also the issue of that fine music played by frogs at night, up at the cottage. That could be gone, too. Green Bay and northeastern Wisconsin residents already know about the dangers of endocrine-disrupting pollutants like dioxin and PCBs, those little gifts from certain local polluting paper mills. Studies show that these toxins, in incredibly tiny amounts, mimic the work done in our bodies by hormones, and have been linked to various reproductive problems, learning disabilities, and cancers. We are all familiar with the mood swings of teens as their hormone levels change. We are not talking about gallons of estrogen and testosterone, we are talking about infinitesimally small amounts causing these problems. What is not yet well studied is the combined assault on the body by both toxic chemicals and pharmaceuticals. The damage done by interruption of hormone production combined with estrogen in our drinking water may be even worse than the conditions listed above. According to a CNN story, in 2002, 80 percent of streams sampled by the U.S. Geological Survey showed evidence of drugs, hormones, steroids, and personal care products such as soaps and perfumes. The U.S.G.S. tested 139 rivers in 30 states. According to the National Center for Health Statistics at the Center for Disease Control, U.S. physicians wrote more than 61 million prescriptions for anti-depressants in 2001. Those anti-depressants have the same effect on fish that they do on people…they relax them. That's not a good thing for the fish, as their impaired state of alertness could leave them more vulnerable to shore birds, larger predatory fish, and humans. Some fishermen might think that a slow-witted fish is good for his creel, but if the fish are all slow-witted and caught, where will the fish of the future come from? Will carp be the sport fish of the future? Few municipalities have extra funding for water treatment plants to install activated charcoal filters or reverse-osmosis systems that could remove the last traces of the chemicals from the effluent that is released into our rivers and other water bodies. The cost of removing such chemicals from wastewater will be prohibitive and even more difficult now because of the current economic climate. Then we have the public’s unrealistic desire to pay low or no taxes, a rather surreal and shortsighted approach to their own future health. It’s like they say: “Ya gets what ya pays for.” It’s unfortunate that people who understand how taxes keep our water clean will suffer along with those that don’t.