Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
June 24, 2008
4. Water Quality –
One big drug test: Analyzing a city's sewage can put a number on its vices
The
Waterway scrutiny: Lake Arrowhead
San Bernardino County Sun- 6/23/08
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One big drug test: Analyzing a city's sewage can put a number on its vices
The
By Marla Cone, Staff Writer
Which city uses more cocaine:
Environmental scientists are beginning to use an unsavory new tool -- raw sewage -- to paint an accurate portrait of drug abuse in communities. Like one big, citywide urinalysis, tests at municipal sewage plants in many areas of the
Law enforcement officials have long sought a way to come up with reliable and verifiable calculations of narcotics use, to identify new trends and formulate policies. Surveys, the backbone of drug-use estimates, are only as reliable as the people who answer them. But sewage does not lie.
Since people excrete chemicals in urine and flush it down toilets, measuring raw sewage for street drugs can provide quick, fairly precise snapshots of drug use in communities, even on a particular day.
The results have been intriguing: Methamphetamine levels in sewage are much higher in
"Every sample has one illicit drug or another, regardless of location," said Jennifer Field, an environmental chemist at
The new practice of testing sewage has illuminated an environmental threat: Many urban waterways around the world are contaminated with low doses of cocaine and other illicit drugs from treated sewage.
So far, this "sewage forensics" or "sewage epidemiology" has not been widespread. Treatment plants do not regularly monitor sewage for street drugs. The Environmental Protection Agency is planning to add illicit drugs to the array of substances that could be monitored daily at treatment plants.
Unlike prescription drugs and personal care products, which are a hot topic in environmental contamination, illicit drugs have long been below the radar.
Christian Daughton, chief of environmental chemistry at the EPA's National Exposure Research Laboratory, first proposed the tests in 2001.
"To me, chemicals are chemicals. All chemicals, whether legal or illegal, have the potential to get into the environment, and living organisms have a potential to be exposed," Daughton said.
Daughton, who was interested in environmental ramifications, realized that the data could help law enforcement, sociologists and others trying to gauge trends in drug abuse.
Most of those experts rely on door-to-door annual surveys, which are based on questioning of 70,000 people nationwide. Based on that, they estimate more than 20 million Americans used illicit drugs in 2006.
Scientists in
Amphetamines, including ecstasy, were the least prevalent drugs in the three cities, while marijuana was widely detected, the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research reported in the online version of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives to their work, published last month.
For every 1,000 people, about 210 milligrams of heroin were used daily in
The scientists were even able to use sewage to estimate individual use and weekly trends. For instance, they estimated that people in
Cocaine use peaked on Saturdays, while heroin and marijuana use remained steady weeklong.
In the
Untreated sewage at all eight treatment plants tested in
In all the Los Angeles County locations, the cocaine metabolite was more concentrated than in Omaha and in Italian, Swiss and British cities, which all contained less than 1 ppb, according to a comparison of several studies.
Other tests have shown that some
Comparing cities can be tricky. Concentrations can fluctuate due to volumes of flow, the time of day, and how long waste travels through sewers, which gives drugs a chance to degrade.
"This has caught on only recently, and people are still trying to understand the uncertainties," said Field, who is currently analyzing data from 96 locations in
Jennifer de Vallance, spokeswoman for the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy, said the testing of sewage in 2006 was an experiment to see if it could provide useful data to federal drug officials at a low cost.
"It came back very favorable. Our determination was that it probably could be done on a larger scale," she said. EPA Assistant Administrator Benjamin Grumbles said that EPA and the national drug office are "working on the details" of a voluntary program at sewage plants that will test for illicit drugs.
"This is sensitive for various communities because these substances do have a stigma attached to them," Daughton said.
The Sanitation Districts of
"It's too hard to test for it. We can't have morphine lying around to calibrate equipment," she said.
Some researchers are now checking the environment for illicit drugs. Traces of prescription drugs have been detected in some drinking water supplies, while cocaine and other drugs have been found in rivers. No one has tested drinking water for illicit drugs.
"Since most of these residues still have potent pharmacological activities, their presence in the aquatic environment may have potential implications for human health and wildlife," the scientists from
Although few researchers are studying the effect of these ultra-low does, scientists say the threat to people is probably minimal. To get a typical dose of cocaine, someone would have to drink 1,000 liters of raw sewage, Field said.
For now, this new drug test remains anonymous. Wastewater from thousands, sometimes millions, of people is pooled at treatment plants, so it cannot be tracked to any individual or specific location.
But because waste also can be tested in local sewers, questions about privacy have been raised.
"You could take this down to a community, a street, even a house," Daughton said. "You can do all kinds of stuff with this. It's sort of unlimited."#
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-me-sewer23-2008jun23,0,2001883.story?track=rss
Waterway scrutiny: Lake Arrowhead
San Bernardino County Sun- 6/23/08
Lauren McSherry, Staff Writer
The developer behind a project to build a hotel, residences and a restaurant next to
The developer, J. Burton Gold, is also receiving scrutiny from the California Regional Water Quality Control Board, which is wrapping up a separate investigation, said Scott Ferguson, supervisor of the enforcement and special projects unit.
The water board began investigating the developer in December 2007 for not implementing measures at his Mill Pond site to keep soil and construction debris from washing into the lake,
The board referred the case to the district attorney earlier this year.
The lake is the principal source of drinking water for the
Gold's attorney Richard Marca, a lawyer with Gresham, Savage, Nolan and Tilden in
"Nothing of a criminal nature has been suggested. ... `Investigation' is probably too strong a word at this point as they are reviewing the reports," he said of the District Attorney's Office.
"It wasn't that he wasn't forthcoming," Marca said. "He was responding, he was sending reports."
Despite concerns about the impact of the runoff, "testing is showing our water quality is good," said Charis Larson, Lake Arrowhead Community Services District spokeswoman.
The water quality control board has also been investigating the company behind another nearby housing development known as Eagle Ridge for similar infractions.
That project, which involves building 182 houses, was also cited for not implementing sufficient measures to keep sediment out of
A $78,000 fine was issued to Simmons Construction Inc. in February for violations at Eagle Ridge, but was later revoked to allow for further investigation,
Due to the volume of the discharge that warrant fines of up to $10,000 a day as well as the time period involved, Gold's penalty for violations at Mill Pond could be expensive, Ferguson said.
"When you're looking at a six- to nine-month period," he said, "it can add up very quickly."#
http://www.sbsun.com/sanbernardino/ci_9679134
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