Report: Untracked water pollutants not being addressed

Posted on Dec 01, 2009 by David DeWitte.

Growing awareness of pharmaceuticals in Iowa waterways has eclipsed a broader problem of chemicals from consumer products that are untracked and unchecked, a new report says.

The Iowa Policy Project report released Tuesday says federal and state regulations don’t require regulators to monitor many chemicals that show up in our water supplies including, fragrances in soaps, chemicals in antimicrobial compounds, and active ingredients in insect repellents.

“These go well beyond the well publicized issue of water contamination by pharmaceuticals,” said report author William Wombacher in a conference call.

The group of contaminants are broadly referred to as “organic wastewater contaminants.” A common attribute is that current law does not require public or private water companies to remove them, Wombacher said.

“Neither are there processes that target these chemical compounds for removal or do a very good job of removing them,” he added.

Wombacher said the concern about pharmaceuticals showing up in drinking water in trace quantities have prompted a growing public awareness of the need to dispose of unneeded pharmaceuticals properly. But changing disposal methods won’t solve the problem of other organic waste contaminants, because most of them get into the wastewater stream through intended uses such as bathing and laundering, and because wastewater treatment systems generally aren’t able to remove them.

One recent study by University of Iowa scientists found low concentrations of two synthetic fragrance compounds known as AHTN and HHCB in both the Iowa River and in the University of Iowa’s drinking water, said Wombacher, who has a master’s degree in civil/environmental engineering from UI.

The report cited several problems with the lack of federal regulation of organic wastewater contaminants. While the manufacturers to test the safety of these chemicals for their intended product use, they are not required to test their effects inside the human body, including whether they can become concentrated in human tissue through drinking water.

Iowa Policy Project researcher Teresa Galluzzo said this would be an ideal time for regulatory action in the United States to require better testing and tracking of organic wastewater contaminants because the European Union recently imposed tougher testing standards for the manufacturers of such products. As a result, many companies based in the United States will already be required to increase their testing of products bound for European consumers.

California’s Proposition 65, passed in 1986, creates a regularly updated list of hundreds of compounds found to be cancer-causing or harmful to reproductive health. It bans their discharge into any water that will ultimately be used as a drinking water source. Galluzzo said the 23-year history of California’s regulation provides a framework for regulatory action that could be taken nationwide.

Wombacher acknowledged that a lack of requirements to collect data about the contaminants make it hard to develop approaches about how to regulate them. He suggested regulation might begin by concentrating on the contaminants known to pose dangers to human health.

Now a law student, Wombacher holds a master’s degree in civil/environmental engineering from the University of Iowa.