Pharmaceuticals, Hormones, and Other Organic Wastewater Contaminants in U.S. Streams, 1999-2000: A National Reconnaissance

Dana W. Kolpin, Edward T. Furlong, Michael T. Meyer, E. Michael Thurman, Steven D. Zaugg, Larry B. Barber, and Herbert T. Buxton

U.S. Geological Survey, 400 S. Clinton Street, Box 1230, Iowa City, Iowa 52244; U.S. Geological Survey, Box 25046, MS 407, Denver, Colorado 80225-0046, U.S. Geological Survey, 4500 SW 40th Avenue, Ocala, Florida 34474; U.S. Geological Survey, 4821 Quail Crest Place, Lawrence, Kansas 66049; U.S. Geological Survey, Box 25046, MS 407, Denver, Colorado 80225-0046; U.S. Geological Survey, 3215 Marine Street, Boulder, Colorado 80303; U.S. Geological Survey, 810 Bear Tavern Road, West Trenton, New Jersey 08628

The continued exponential growth in human population has created a corresponding increase in the demand for the Earth's limited supply of freshwater. Thus, protecting the integrity of our water resources is one of the most essential environmental issues of the 21st century. Recent decades have brought increasing concerns for potential adverse human and ecological health effects resulting from the production, use, and disposal of numerous chemicals that offer improvements in industry, agriculture, medical treat ment, and even common household conveniences. Research has shown that many such compounds can enter the environment, disperse, and persist to a greater extent than first anticipated. Some compounds, such as pesticides, are intentionally released in measured applications. Others, such as industrial byproducts, are released through regulated and unregulated industrial discharges to water and air resources. Household chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and other consumables as well as biogenic hormones are released directly to the environment after passing through wastewater treatment processes (via wastewater treatment plants, or domestic septic systems), which often are not designed to remove them from the effluent. Veterinary pharmaceuticals used in animal feeding operations may be released to the environment with animal wastes through overflow or leakage from storage structures or land application. As a result, there are a wide variety of transport pathways for many different chemicals to enter and persist in environmental waters.

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