Last Thursday, the House Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment heard pollution experts call for a new national approach to monitor the country's waters for the presence of hundreds of recently detected contaminants ranging from drugs to fire retardants. The congressional hearing immediately follows the release of Associated Press investigative reports indicating that health facilities flush 250 million pounds of drugs down the drain and that more than 46 million Americans have detectable levels of pharmaceuticals in their drinking water.

U.S. representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, chairwoman of the subcommittee and a former nurse, opened the hearing with a warning that the presence of these contaminants makes her "question just how safe our waters actually are -- especially to human health over the long term."

Experts testifying proposed a range of actions, ranging from a call to monitor all chemical discharges to the suggestion that more research and evaluation are needed before Congress undertakes sweeping revisions to the Clean Water Act. However, Ben Grumbles, the EPA's top water official, agreed that critics are correct to question whether the existing regulatory mechanism can handle the complex mixtures being detected in waters.

For additional details and links to related stories, please refer to Calls for more monitoring of drugs and chemicals.

PharmEcology® Associates, LLC of Wauwatosa, WI was founded in 2000 and provides pharmaceutical waste management consulting services to the healthcare industry through seminars, on-site risk assessments, and other custom consulting services, in addition to the PharmE® Waste Wizard and PharmE® Inventory Analysis. Contact us at 414-292-3959 or email us at info@pharmecology.com .