Pharmaceuticals in the Environment: Looking to Green Governance for a Remedy
![handle is hein.journals/gwjeel3 and id is 182 raw text is: Pharmaceuticals in the
Environment: Loolng to Green
Governance for a Remedy
Ryan James Albrecht*
Water is the most important prerequisite for life on Earth.
It was in water that life had its origins, and without water life
cannot continue.
-Margot Wallstrom, former Vice President
of the European Commission
T hroughout the United States, researchers have discov-
ered pharmaceuticals in surface and drinking water,
an occurrence that frustrates current regulations
and constitutes an emerging threat to human and ecologi-
cal health. A U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) study con-
ducted between 1999 and 2000 examined water samples
from a network of 139 streams across thirty states. The study
concluded that eighty percent of tested samples contained at
least one, a median of seven, and as many as thirty-eight of
the ninety-five contaminants listed in the study'
In 2008, the Associated Press reported that twenty-four
major metropolitan water supplies, which provide water to
* Ma;. Ryan Albrecht serves in the US. Air Force Judge Advocate
General; Corps. A longer version of this Article was submitted in
partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree oJ Master of
Laws in Environmental Studies at The George Washington University
Law School. The views expressed in this paper are solely those of the
author and do not reflect the oficial policy or position oj the US.
Air Force, Department of Defense, or U.S. government. The author
wishes to thank his wife, Karen, and sons, Gabe and Gavin, for their
support, encouragement, and patience, and Dean LeRoy Paddock for
his mentorship throughout the year and guidance in developing and
writing this Article.
1. Margot Walistrom, Introduction, in A HEALTHy FUTURE: PHARMACEUTICALS
IN A SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY 10 II (Bengt-Erik Bengtsson et al. eds., 2009),
available at http://ww-ww.epa.gov/esd/bios/daughton/Pharmaceuticals-Sustain-
ability-2009.pdf.
2. GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIV. SCH. OF PUB. HEALTH & HEALT SERVS., PHAR-
MACEUTICALS ARE IN THE DRINKING WATER: WHAT DOES IT MEAN? 1 (2008),
available at http://w-w-w.gvumic.edu/sphhs/about/rapidresponse/download/
RapidH20_Final.pdf.
3. Dana W Kolpin et al., Pharmaceuticals, Hormones, and Other 0rgnic V ate-
water Contaminants in U.S Streams, 1999-2000: A /zional Reonnaissnc
36 ENVTL. Sc. & TECH. 1202, 1202 (2002).
4. Id. The USGS survey included antibiotics, pharmaceuticals, steroids, hor-
mones, caffeine, and various chemicals found in plastics, insecticides, fragranc-
es, fire retardants, and solvents. Id.
over 40 million people, contained trace levels of a variety of
pharmaceuticals.' The drinking water in Philadelphia, for
example, contained fifty-six different pharmaceuticals or
byproducts, ranging from heart medications to anticonvul-
sants.6 Similar research conducted on Cape Cod's public water
supply discovered nine pharmaceuticals, including high lev-
els of sulfamethoxazole, an antibiotic, and Dilantin, an anti-
seizure medication./ The actual amount of pharmaceuticals
in the water, however, remains unknown because many pub-
lic water utilities do not routinely test for pharmaceuticals,
and there is no national program to determine the presence
of pharmaceuticals in other waters.' Yet, from antibiotics to
hormones, the number of pharmaceutical compounds in the
nation's water may number in the thousands.o
Further complicating the issue, pharmaceuticals enter the
environment through a variety of pathways, ranging from
intentional disposal of pharmaceuticals, to the passage of
unmetabolized pharmaceuticals through bodily waste, to
industrial discharge. Moreover, current water-treatment
5. Jeff Donn, Martha Mendoza & Justin Pritchard, AP: Drugs Found in Drink-
ing Water, USA TODAY, Sept. 12, 2008, http://-Ny.usatoday.com/news/
nation/2008-03-10-drugs-tap-vater N.htm.
6. Id. Other studies have also found pharmaceuticals in water. See, e.g., KIMBER-
LEE K. BARNES ET AL., U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY, OPEN FILE REPORT 2008-
1293, WATER- QUALITY DATA FOR PHARMACEUTICALS AND OTHER ORGANIC
WASTEWATER CONTAMINANTS IN GROUND WATER AND IN UNTREATED DRINK-
ING WATER SOURCES IN THE UNITED STATES, ZOOO-OI, at 5 (2008), available
at http://pubs.usgs.goviof/2008/1293/pdf/OFR2008-1293.pdf (stating that
sixty-three of the 100 targeted compounds were detected in at least one water
sample).
7. LAUREL SCHAIDER ET AL., SILENT SPRING INST., EMERGING CONTAMINANTS IN
CAPE COD DRINKING WATER 6 (2010), available at http://wviv.silentspring.
org/pdf/our-research/DrinkingV aterStudyi eport.pdf.
8. GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIV. ScH. OF PUB. HLALT & HEALTH SERVS., Supra
note 2, at3.
9. Id. at 5.
10. Pharmaceui Conpounds in the Environment: Hearingon Legislative Oversight
Before the Mas. YaterRes. Autb., 185th Gen. Court 1 (Mass. 2008) [hereinaf-
ter Sine Ttniony] (statement of James Shine, Associate Professor of Aquatic
Chemistr, Harvard School of Public Health), available at http://ww-w.mwra.
state ma.us/04water/html/pharrna/shine hsph.pdf.
11. Se generally SCHAIDER ET AL., SILENT SPRING INST., supra note 7, at 4; Phar-
maeuicals in Our Water Supplies, U. ARIZ. C. AGRIC. & LIFE Sci., http://
ag.arizona.edu/AZWATER/awr/julv00/featurel.htm (last visited Feb. 18,
2012) (noting that [p]harmaceutical industries, hospitals and other medical
facilities are obvious sources of pharmaceuticals that enter the environment,
as these entities dispose the drugs directly) Emily Sohn, Taking Showers Could
JOURNAL OF ENERGY & ENVIRONMENTAL LAW
82
Summer 2012](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/gwjeel3&div=14&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Pharmaceuticals in the Environment: Looking to Green Governance for a Remedy
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