What is really in our water?

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Permalink Reply by Anne RK on March 14, 2008 at 9:22pm

I attended an Ohio Valley SETAC meeting/conference last fall where the topic was about emerging contaminants. There were several professionals who presented on the topic, in addition to a poster session by a few graduate students. White papers were also submitted and I believe they are available for review. The information I gathered from this meeting is at my office, so I will try to remember to look up the authors/biologists and post their names, etc. Monday.

In short, some of these emerging contaminants do have an impact on, among other things, fecundity (in fish) and intersex characteristics (usually linked to ag. chemicals) in fish. But so do PCBs.

One challenge is getting people (not those on this site b/c I know you are all aware of this) to recognize that just because the contaminant doesn't cause a large die off/fish kill, doesn't mean that it doesn't have a negative impact on longterm survivorship of a population. Another challenge is proving to EPA that, for example caffeine, is a contaminant so that it can be a listed or characteristic waste. It's not necessarily easy to test for known contaminants so screening for emerging contaminants can be equally if not more difficult. So the answers may or may not be readily available and may take time to determine. Just food for thought.

Just my 2 cents.

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Permalink Reply by Rae Schnapp on April 25, 2008 at 1:35pm

The state monitors water quality for some basic pollutants and it is all public information though it is not online. You have to make a request from the Assessment Branch at the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. They have data on E. coli, Dissolved oxygen, Total Suspended solids etc. but not prozac or endocrine disrupting chemicals. The tests are expensive even if you know what you are looking for. It would really be cost-prohibitive to screen for everything. Wastewater treatment plants typically do a test called Whole Effluent Toxicity where they measure toxicity under laboratory conditions using a fast growing fish called Daphnia. We have been trying to persuade IDEM that they should do a similar test for total hormone disrupting properties.

This summer we are going to conduct workshops to train volunteers about water quality monitoring so that we can fill in some of the data gaps. Anyone interested should contact me.

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Permalink Reply by Derek Reuter on May 27, 2008 at 12:26am

Well in the watershed work I am involved with, I deal mostly with nonpoint source pollution, pollution for any possible where but any a specific direct source. "I somehow feel I'm preaching to the choir, but to answer the question I can't assume so." most nonpoint source pollution NPS comes in the form of bacteria, nutrients, chemicals, and sedimentation, but issues like dissolved oxygen, dissolved solids and algae cause impairments as well. Thing is, none of this can be successfully addressed with out a total change in society and daily habits, especial in the arena of nonpoint source pollution. We cause the imbalance, its humans. So it’s also the whole inspire social and positive change dynamic thing there and I'm not going to go there and start a discussion on that whole debacle.

But there is a cycle, and our end of it and influence is the waste treatment plants. If we turn our focus to waste treatment plants we might be able to pin point some crucial problems that can be addressed that could eliminate one of our biggest impacts, point source pollution and that waste management/treatment plants are our best possible gatekeeper and yet one of our biggest contributors. Not usually by there own fault. To my knowledge the mandate/tech/engineering changes have to come from the Fed or State so there are walls even for those in the plants that recognize the faults and want to change things.

So let’s get to it, what are these faults. I'm going to have to get technical here. OK, it’s like this. Waste treatment plants, pretty much initially created to take care of the odor and rotting process of waste. Keeping the process aerobic cause it dealt with the smell, and yet it influences the creation of biotic communities because their feeding off the waste and oxygen. This causes biochemical oxygen demand (BOD). Some of these bacteria feed off the carbon based waste (fecal), some the nitrogen based waste (urine, protein). Making C-BOD and N-BOD, well both cause the dissolved oxygen problem, and is produced within the facilities, and here’s the meat. Not all N-BOD is tested for, so it ends up back into the river of course. So in some places, waste treatment facilities are massively adding the dissolved oxygen problem to our rivers. It comes down to engineering really and there aren't any strong requirements for engineering environmental requirements that I know about, currently I think an old act called the Ten State Standards is what a lot of states go by and I don't know if Indiana does or not but I don't see it being effective for environmental stewardship.

Waste treatment facilities usually do the cleaning through stages moving area to area, but there are also filters. These filters are for biomass/water separation and are accompanied by a TSS (Total Suspended Solids) test. Thing is, what they don't tell you is, the test only measures for particles that are up one micron or larger. So sub microns have a free ride and well...most virus and pharmi particles are smaller then 1 micron. So that is what is in the river and in your drinking water.

There is another test that is called TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) test and there should be a warning label that states hey this test only tests for minerals and not carbon or organic materials. Yeah that would be super.

So over all it helps to have engineers that can recognize the better practices and able to make engineering improvements. It also helps to get rid of the often misleading and incomplete testing systems used.

Of course you hit the wall when testing issues are handled at the state or federal level.
WOoooo HHOooo catch 22.

Well that’s it, hope you dug the script.

It feels good to be caught up on most work so that I have time to post on things like this. Then again, actually being caught up in work would is closer to an allusion than anything.

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Permalink Reply by Anne RK on May 29, 2008 at 9:59am

I agree, that although testing for caffeine , nicotine, cocaine, or other drugs is not "new", the mainstream idea of it here in the U.S., research, and some of the technology used to test for it for purposes of determining stream and sediment quality are new (within the last 3-9 years) and/or limited to a certain few institutions or agencies that use it.

The USGS , USEPA, and other agencies, institutions, and utilities have and are continuing to research ecological and human health risks posed by emerging contaminants -- pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs). This includes studying toxicity, biodegradation, and implications for indications of the effectiveness of wastewater treatment. Both the USEPA and USGS have information available on their sites.

Additionally, I believe the USEPA approved test methods in December of 2007 for some of the PPCPs. And they are supposed to add to the list of drinking water contaminants in 2008. But I think this is just for drinking water. I'm not sure about effluent limits/TMDLs at WWTPs.

I agree that we put a ton of stuff into our environment that gets into our waters and that impacts the health of wildlife (plant and animal) and all of it isn't being tested. As mentioned in previous posts, this is due in part to many WWTPs being outdated or are currently not engineered to treat and/or test for these contaminants, the cost of re-engineering a plant, cost of testing, and first and foremost current applicable regulations. The state has not and probably will not adopt standards, effluent limits, applicable regulations etc. until federal changes are made to the current federal regulations and when USEPA mandates it. IDEM is not a research driven agency. Or in other words, when research is conducted it is not necessarily done in order to effect changes in state regulations. I must add though, there are hard working dedicated staff at IDEM who do care, who do conduct research when funding is available, and would if they could make positive changes to current standards and regulations.

Finally, apologies for not linking to the papers mentioned in my previous post. I will, hopefully, someday, remember to jot down the authors, titles, links etc.

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Permalink Reply by waldopaper on June 13, 2008 at 2:16pm

Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. Journals here. But for this simple bloke... the total madness of our KOYAANISQATSI begins every morning... with a dump into a bowl of POTABLE WATER... and it gets crazier from there.

To a "mediant" like me, the estrogens, amphetamines, dibutyl phthalate and such in the water is rain from our mental environment. We'll go a long way toward a greener world if we saw Network TV the same way John Muir would see a river full of turds.

I'm afraid we are still vegans at the hog-roast.

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Permalink Reply by Derek Reuter on September 20, 2008 at 8:35pm

Hello Everyone,
Tanya Lodics a friend of mine asked me to post this for her in response to this discussion. Tanya is a high grade chemist that works for Purdue and has built a bit of a rap sheet doing biological and chemical assessment in the lab and out in the field.

As Rae was describing inexpensive biological type
indicators, I would like to chime in. The mother will
take care of herself, she really doesn't give a crap
about us. We are just struggling to protect the
people from the next plague (self-poisoning). Anyway,
the thing I really wanted you to post was a surprise
to me.
Asian Clams which are sort of considered an exotic,
can actually be of great benefit in a similar way as
to what Rae pointed out. These little buggers are
great indicators for metals. They are sensitive to
metals. So, if one does not have a sophisticated lab
or much money, these could be used as sensors for
heavy metal contamination. Would you share that?
And, possibly known already, the woman in our class
from the State Chemist Office informed me that oats
are great indicators of Atrazine pollution.
Having spent much time developing and utilizing
inexpensive biological assays, I was excited to learn
these new things. Most Lilly animal feed products
were only detectable using bio-tlc, but this was
discarded for glitzer, more expensive assays by
chemists; however, we used it and the state chemist
office also use it because it is the only thing that
trully works. Same for vitamins - bioassays, baby.
peace.
Tanya

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