Seattle, Eastside drinking water unlikely to be tainted by drugs

(Editor's Note: This story has been changed since it was first published to clarify that it is the federal Safe Drinking Water Act not the federal Clean Water Act that regulates contaminants in drinking water supplies.)

It's extremely unlikely that pharmaceuticals are getting into the drinking water system serving Seattle and parts of the Eastside, although it's clear they are finding their way into local waterways -- where scientists are discovering "feminized" male fish.

But Seattleites do have it in their power to at least cut down on the amount of drugs getting into local waters. Local officials say we have the nation's most ambitious trial of a program to properly dispose of old medicines. Flushing old drugs down the toilet is no longer recommended.

Seattle is unusual for a big city because officials last century set aside huge swaths of the Cascade Range, the Tolt River and Cedar River watersheds, which are off-limits to the public. There's no place for runoff carrying medicine to enter the watersheds.

"I would say it is extremely unlikely," said Wylie Harper, director of the water quality lab at Seattle Public Utilities.

Other experts agreed.

"We're in a different situation than someplace like New Orleans that's downstream from large populations," said Dave Galvin, manager of King County's hazardous waste program. "We're not in a situation with our drinking water that would have any reason for pharmaceuticals to get in there."

Seattle has not tested for pharmaceuticals in the drinking water, however.

The local environmental group most involved with the pharmaceuticals issue, Washington Citizens for Resource Conservation, also is unaware of any tests for pharmaceuticals in Seattle's water, said Eva Dale, manager of the group's project on pharmaceuticals and the environment.

"While the levels of pharmaceuticals being detected in the water in general are very low, we're very concerned about the risk of long-term exposure, which is largely unknown," Dale said.

The group is one of a number of partners in Washington's drug-take-back program, which operates in the lower Puget Sound region and Spokane. Harper said concern about drugs and especially hormone-disrupting chemicals in the water supply is of increasing concern to water quality experts nationwide. There is still no clear evidence of human health threats, he said, but improvements in laboratory testing have made it increasingly possible to detect even very small amounts of contaminants.

Leslie Gates, spokeswoman for the state Department of Health's Office of Drinking Water, said there are something like 17,000 water systems statewide. About 4,200 of them are large enough to be subject to regulation. The federal Save Drinking Water Act does not require testing for pharmaceutical contaminants.

Many of these systems get their water from wells, where there is a somewhat higher possibility of contamination than in the Seattle system.

Like Harper, she agreed that this was a growing concern.

"No matter what we find, the important thing is to keep pharmaceuticals out of the water or waste stream in the first place."

Scientists have documented the presence of a female protein in male fish -- as if a male chicken started to make egg yolks -- and a hot spot is in Elliott Bay, where a combination of raw sewage and stormwater runoff was discharged for decades. Scientists hypothesize that contaminants in the sewage -- perhaps birth control pills or substances that mimic estrogen -- are "feminizing" the male fish.

The phenomenon also has been documented in waters off Tacoma, Bremerton, Everett and Port Susan.

DITCH YOUR OLD DRUGS

Outdated prescription medicines can be disposed of safely at any Group Health pharmacy, say government officials and environmentalists. You do not have to be a Group Health member to use the free service. For more information, see medicinereturn.com. King County has 11 return locations.