What's in your water?

In Lititz Run, where treated sewage from the Lititz-Warwick treatment plant is discharged, it's drugs from mood stabilizers, blood pressure medicine, painkillers and antibiotics used for bee hives.

Below a large dairy farm in Rapho Township, a probe found traces of caffeine, two pharmaceuticals and an antibiotic in Little Chickies Creek.

In Conoy Township, Snitz Creek just downstream of a large dairy operation turned up a prescription pharmaceutical, two nonprescription drugs and three antibiotics.

What are drugs from medicine cabinets doing in the county's surface water? Are we drinking it? Will it harm us or fish?

And what about antibiotics and drugs injected into livestock and mixed into water and feed? Do they pass through the animals and run off during rains into nearby streams?

Pennsylvania environmental officials wanted to know. That's why they launched the first exploratory study into drugs in water in Pennsylvania. The technology to detect such things in water evolved only in recent years.

In cooperation with the state Department of Environmental Protection, scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey sampled 11 streams in nine counties in southeastern Pennsylvania — three of them in Lancaster County.

In five of the streams, samples were taken above and below sewage-treatment plants. In six others, the water was analyzed upstream and downstream of large farms. Six farm wells also were sampled, including one used by livestock in Rapho Township.

The theory for checking water below where sewage effluent is discharged is that drugs we take for various maladies and good health are not all absorbed by our bodies. They pass through us and end up in sewage.

Some people flush unused medicine directly down the toilet.

The study found emphatically that the drugs are indeed ending up in waterways, though in very minute amounts.

Of the 15 common pharmaceutical compounds searched for in the 11 streams in nine counties, 13 turned up. Screening for 31 human and animal antibiotics revealed 11 present.

The 15 pharmaceuticals and antibiotics found in Lititz Run was the second-highest number found in the 11 streams.

"We wanted to see if this was really happening. Yes, it is real," says J. Kent Crawford, water quality specialist for the Pennsylvania office of the USGS and lead researcher of the study.

Sewage treatment plants are designed to treat for organic matter, not drugs. Though traditional treatment does remove some compounds, a witches' brew of pharmaceuticals and antibiotics in trace amounts are apparently ending up in streams.

State and federal regulations don't require sewage treatment for such compounds and no treatment plant in Lancaster County does.

Researchers were pleasantly surprised that few of the target antibiotics they thought might be flowing from farms were found in nearby streams.

"We expected to find them and we're not finding them — that's pretty good news," Crawford says. "Maybe they are being absorbed into soils before reaching streams."

Asked why a number of pharmaceuticals were found in Little Chickies and Snitz creeks, however, Crawford said on-lot septic systems from nearby homes could be a source.

Nor did the study of well water find many drugs, also encouraging since groundwater is a prime source of drinking water for many municipalities and rural homeowners.

"There seems to be a natural filtering as these compounds move through groundwater," observes Crawford. "I'm not saying groundwater is clean from these compounds, but it's at lower risk than surface water."

•••

Now that we know drugs are reaching streams, a burning question is whether they end up in drinking water.

Two follow-up studies launched by DEP and USGS seek to answer that question.

One, a three-year study launched last summer, will take a more detailed look at what's in small streams downstream of large sewage plants.

Also, fish in 15 streams around the state, including Lititz Run, will be autopsied to see if they are being harmed.

A disturbing trend of male fish developing female characteristics has been documented around the country in recent years, including bass in the Potomac and Shenandoah river basins.

Compounds found in pharmaceuticals, especially birth-control pills, that mimic hormones in humans and fish are the culprits.

A seven-year study by Canadian authorities introduced low concentrations of estrogen and estrogen-mimicking drugs — as found in sewage plant effluents — into a lake.

Both male and female fathead minnows had their reproduction capabilities disrupted and the wild fish population collapsed after two years.

Perhaps most importantly, a separate study by DEP and the federal Environmental Protection Agency will look at water quality at more than 100 sites in the state's streams, rivers and lakes located near drinking water intakes.

There is growing concern over whether Americans drinking drugs — even at very low levels — can cause them harm over decades of exposure.

No one knows because the discovery of drugs in drinking water is so new that health studies simply have not been done.

"There is little to no evidence that there is any impact on humans," says Crawford, adding, "the studies haven't been done, that's why."

One chief concern that scientists are just beginning to study is whether antibiotics in waterways are creating resistant strains of bacteria that could cause infections in humans immune to traditional treatments.

Like wastewater plants, few water-treatment facilities test for the presence of pharmaceuticals and antibiotics in drinking water.

Lancaster City and five other municipal water systems contacted by the New Era don't.

State and federal regulations do not require them to nor are there limits on levels of the drugs that may be in drinking water.

They could check and they could remove the drugs, but it would be very expensive.

Traditional water treatment seems to remove some pharmaceuticals and antibiotics, partly remove others and some not at all, according to Crawford.

He said he's sure drugs are entering the Susquehanna and Conestoga rivers, drinking water sources for Lancaster City and some other communities. Other communities here, such as Lititz, tap groundwater.

"Is that a problem? We don't know," says Crawford. He notes the levels are minute. "Hopefully, that's some safety factor."

 Water quality specialist discusses study

Chart: Drugs found in Lancaster County waters


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