Everybody in Los Angeles is a DRUG FIEND

reply to post by Secret Shadow

Yes that is one idea to the influx of water as stated in lots posts a few ways back. Another major source that really isn't talked about and could account for a large portion is medical waste, from hospitals care centers etc, can be discharging large qty of waste illegally (instead of costly disposal techniques).

In any case, welcome to the thread, and speak up, any other information that you can offer, since you were immersed () in the water field, is greatly appreciated. Big post coming...

Found a really good paper on the issue of drugs in our water, it is from 1999 and it is a scholarly peer review article, so try not to have your eyes glaze over, I have summarized it here. For the full paper go to this link: www.ehponline.org...


[color=gold]Introduction:

Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCP's) are continually infused into the environment via sewage treatment facilities and wet weather runoff. In many instances, untreated sewage is discharged into receiving waters (e.g., flood overload events, domestic "straight-piping," or sewage waters lacking municipal treatment). In the United States alone, possibly more than a million homes do not have sewage systems but instead rely on direct discharge of raw sewage into streams by straight-piping or by outhouses not connected to leach fields (1). A number of Canadian cities are reported to discharge 3.25 billion liters per day (over 1 trillion liters per year) of essentially untreated sewage into surface waters and the ocean..

[color=gold]Concerning Concentrations:

The hypothesis is further complicated by the fact that while the concentration of individual drugs in the aquatic environment could be low (sub-parts per billion or sub-nanomolar, often referred to as micropollutants), the presence of numerous drugs sharing a specific mode of action [color=gold]could lead to significant effects through additive exposures. It is also significant that drugs, unlike pesticides, have not been subjected to the same scrutiny regarding possible adverse environmental effects. They have therefore enjoyed several decades of unrestricted discharge to the environment, mainly via sewage treatment works.

[color=gold]The Compounds:

www.ehponline.org...
www.ehponline.org...
www.ehponline.org...
www.ehponline.org...
www.ehponline.org...
www.ehponline.org...
www.ehponline.org...
www.ehponline.org...
www.ehponline.org...

A striking difference between pharmaceuticals and pesticides with respect to environmental release is that pharmaceuticals have the potential for ubiquitous direct release into the environment worldwide--anywhere that humans live or visit. Even areas considered relatively pristine (e.g., national parks) are subject to pharmaceutical exposures, especially given that some parks have very large, aging sewage treatment systems, some of which discharge into park surface waters and some of which overflow during wet weather events and infrastructure failures (e.g., Yellowstone National Park)

This is important, it states that the metabolites (converted drugs that have been excreted by the body) can sometimes be more dangerous than the orignal form of the drug.

Some drugs are excreted essentially unaltered in their free form (e.g., methotrexate and platinum antineoplastics), often with the help of active cellular "multidrug transporters" for moderately lipophilic drugs. Others are metabolized to various extents, which is partly a function of the individual patient and the circadian timing of the dose (the P450 microsomal oxidase system is a major route of formation of more polar, more easily excreted metabolites). Still others are converted to more soluble forms by formation of conjugates (with sugars or peptides).

The subsequent transformation products--metabolites and conjugates from eukaryotic and prokaryotic metabolism, and from physicochemical alteration--add to the already complex picture of thousands of highly bioactive chemicals. The FDA refers to all metabolites and physicochemical transformation products, for example, those that range from the dissociated parent compound to photolysis products, for a given drug as structurally related substances (SRSs), which can have greater or lesser physiologic activity than the parent drug.

[color=gold]Sewage Treatment Plants Problems:

Sewage treatment plants. Treatment facilities, primarily POTWs or sewage treatment works (STWs), which include privately owned works as well, play a key role in the introduction of pharmaceuticals into the environment [see Rogers (19) for a review of the fate of synthetic chemicals in sewage treatment plants]. STWs were designed to handle human waste of mainly natural origin

[color=gold]Drinking Water:

A major unaddressed issue regarding human health is the long-term effects of ingesting via potable waters very low, subtherapeutic doses of numerous pharmaceuticals multiple times a day for many decades. This concern especially relates to infants, fetuses, and people suffering from certain enzyme deficiencies (which can even be food-induced, e.g., microsomal oxidase inhibition by grapefruit juice).

So what's the problem, according to this, when water supplies are low, effluent (filled with unfilterd and untested for drugs) can comprise up to 50% (!) of the water available to reservoirs as potable water. That is not good. It means the concentrations can FLUCTUATE greatly with the seasons, with drought/no drought conditions and other factors such as storms and still other factors. All the while, these drugs are not tested, so we as consumers, are oblivious to these extreme concentrations that may be in our water.

According to the National Research Council (NRC) (25), more than two dozen major U.S. utilities release so much effluent to receiving waters that when the natural flows are low, the discharged waste composes 50% of the eventual flow. Any residual, unidentified contaminants therefore are diluted 2-fold at best. In more densely populated countries (e.g., United Kingdom), this figure can rise [color=gold]as high as 90% of flow during times of low rainfall (26).

Wow. Re-read that-let it 'soak' in.


[edit on 6-4-2008 by battlestargalactica]

And besides, what you should be worried about is the flourine levels in your water as flourine will bond to calcium in your bloodstream and bones....calcium controls muscle function i.e: THE HEART! lol. So, if there is too much flourine cardiac arrest is a possible issue

reply to post by Secret Shadow


Well, with too much, sure, but how much is in our water supply? Not a lot.

reply to post by coconut


"Not a lot" is a relative term.

reply to post by battlestargalactica


Ok, where is the empirical evidence that tap water ever caused a heart attack?

reply to post by battlestargalactica


IMHO i dont think the hospitals illegal dumping is a huge issue because there is always a massive amount of staff in hospitals so someone would have to see this happening and call the EPA, and after dealing with them for a period of time i can tell you the EPA is not the place to go crying wolf to, they will seriously mess your world up with something like six-digit fines.

And as for the effluent levels being so high in drinking water. I can honestly see them being fifty percent or higher at anygiven time, i mean think about it if you city official and had to spend that much money on water (usually a city will either pay fees or has an outright contract with a water source to pump water from a resource) would you pump in only fresh water or would you conserve water by mixing as much treated effluent with it as possible?

yes i know that doesnt make sense...but thats municipal governments motto..." If it makes sense, you aint doing it the right way"

reply to post by coconut


by "not alot" you would be referring to the normal level of around 1-1.5 ppm of flouride per liter, however it only takes about 2 ppm of flouride to start causing flourosis which is a hardening of the bones of sorts. flouride is a very highly monitored element in the water, the only problem is they dont take into account the amount thats already corroded in the pipeline after it leaves the plants...when ever we tested our samples it would rise by about .5 ppm in between the plant and the storage tower

reply to post by Secret Shadow

Thats scary too, so from the tower, thru the city plumbing, and eventually thru your home plumbing, what are we talking about in terms of flouride ppm left in the water? Fluoride MCL's from the EPA are 2 mg/l to 4.0 mg/l. If a city water supply registers between the 2-4mg/l, then stricter testing is req'd generally, under 2.0 mg/l and its a-ok according to the regs.

p.s. 1ppm = 1mg/l = 1000ppb (for water) for those that don't have the conversion..

reply to post by Secret Shadow


Personally I don't know of fluorine causing increased mortality. If you know different, feel free to offer data. This is a fascinating subject.

reply to post by battlestargalactica



well...personally in our area the minicipal's limit is 4.0 ppm of flourine and since flouride is F2(sorry dont know how to subscript that two) that translates to 2ppm of flouride per liter...which always struck me as kinda funny since our water levels usually hover around 1.3-1.8 depending on which tower it comes from, older towers usually have higher levels due to older piping. But honestly, just think how much it would cost in taxes to dig up all that piping and replace it

but honestly im glad i live in a town where we dont pump effluent back into the water supply, i mean we pay more and the other towns in the state think were morons for not doing so, but its a simpler process and we still make use of the effluent by pumping it to farms that produce non-edibles

reply to post by coconut


well..I'll concede this to you that while there is as of yet no documented evidence of flourine in drinking water causing but what i can find no one has ever actually done a study of the link between annual heart disease related deaths and flourine in drinking water.

but as for the effects of flourine as a poison:

www.corrosion-doctors.org...

www.fluoridealert.org...

i hope thats evidence enough


Oh, and heres an article that quotes the CDC itself on the effects of flourine in the system, although the first paragraph is somewhat opinionated itself the important parts seem fairly non-biased and mostly quote a CDC report from 1999

www.westonaprice.org...

[edit on 6-4-2008 by Secret Shadow]

[edit on 6-4-2008 by Secret Shadow]

This goes to show you that the U.S. is addicted to many things such as oil, drugs, food, money and material things.

Originally posted by battlestargalactica
p.s. 1ppm = 1mg/l = 1000ppb (for water) for those that don't have the conversion..

maybe im very very mistaken, but i dont think i am...but, your calc's are off.

think of mixing liquids. 1ppm (part per million) would be like 1ml per million ml's or 1ml per thousand liters

so if we had something that contained 1mg/ml and plug it back into your flow above we'd get: 1ppm=.001mg/l=.000000001ppb

1ppm=1/1000000
1ppb=1/1000000000

im sure it was just a math error but lets not make these numbers look scarier than they are.

reply to post by Damocles

No you are completely wrong. 1ppm is a LARGER concentration than 1ppb, you have it all backasswards.

1 ppm = 1000 ppb.

In your wrong math example in your post, the corrected version is:

.001mg/liter = 1 ppb =.001 ppm

So a simple example for you: Solve the problem:
The MCL for Fluoride is 2.0 mg/liter, our water sample tested has a fluoride concentration of 200 ppb, have we passed the EPA max allowed concentration (MCL) of 2.0mg/l?

200ppb/1000=0.2 ppm=0.2 mg/liter, therefore yes we have passed, the fluoride is 1/10 the MCL level mandated by the EPA.

Originally posted by Damocles
im sure it was just a math error..

Yes I am sure your error is just a math error, but lets not make these numbers look COMPLETELY WRONG due to bad math and you not doing your homework mmkay?


[edit on 7-4-2008 by battlestargalactica]

well, let no one ever say i cant admit when i am wrong. i guess i just misread what you were saying and then proceded to totally screw up what i was saying. i was wrong, you were correct. please accept my apologies.

Originally posted by battlestargalactica
Yes I am sure your error is just a math error, but lets not make these numbers look COMPLETELY WRONG due to bad math and you not doing your homework mmkay?

i just also have to say that it wasnt a matter of not doing homework its a matter of not having worked with concentrations since 2001, not even once.

so, while tonight i relearned conversions. maybe you can learn to be right without sounding like a dick when someone dares to imply you may be mistaken? particularly when it takes 3 edits to do it?

[edit on 7-4-2008 by Damocles]

reply to post by Damocles

I was formulating your sample question for you to answer with the edits
Did you get to it?

ppm and ppb are pretty simple, it's when you confuse things with mg/liter and µg/liter. If you got confused with ppm and ppb, you'd really get confused with the city water quality reports since they seem to mix units and use different one for different compounds.

mg/l = 1000 µg/l basically again.

Also, if I seemed like a dick its because you basically accused me of tampering with equations in order to inflate my numbers, a groundless accusation, and an accusation that was completely false using your bad math.

The concentration can be quite confusing, I think they do it on purpose to screw with us

Also came across a good visualization for ppb, think of an olympic sized pool, 1 ppb is equivalent to one m&m dropped into that pool. PPM is equivalent to 1000 m&m's dropped into the same pool

[edit on 7-4-2008 by battlestargalactica]

This is such a great post.

I'm going to study it and all the lists. Did the research say the drugs affect babies or migrate to the unborn?

Originally posted by battlestargalactica
reply to post by Damocles

 

I was formulating your sample question for you to answer with the edits
Did you get to it?

why would i? you answered it in the next sentence. it was correct.
however, you posted, then edited in the sample question, THEN added the potshot at me after both of those. (i was formulating a response and had gone back to the thread a couple times to check both your posts and my own so i noticed the additional edits. as it turned out you were right so i had to disregard what id been working on)

ppm and ppb are pretty simple, it's when you confuse things with mg/liter and µg/liter. If you got confused with ppm and ppb, you'd really get confused with the city water quality reports since they seem to mix units and use different one for different compounds.

yes, they are simple and i used to deal with things that made water qual reports look like 1st grade reading "see spot run" type stuff.

but, that was then and this, unfortunatly is now. (go back a few posts where i mentioned my own blood for a clue to that one)

mg/l = 1000 µg/l basically again.

upon review you'll see that i agree with you there.

Also, if I seemed like a dick its because you basically accused me of tampering with equations in order to inflate my numbers,

absolutly wrong, and if you took it that way then again ill apologize but if you read my post you'd see i was giving you the benefit of the doubt for making a math error. you wouldnt be the first to make such an error then try to use said conclusions to support your case. but again, i was giving you the benefit of the doubt.

a groundless accusation, and an accusation that was completely false using your bad math.

had it been an accusation absolutly it would have been unfounded as it turned out i was in fact the one who was mistaken and said as much.

however...you dont see where you might come off as overreacting to someone challenging your statements? i mean if we all agreed and never called each others posts into question what would be the point? one sided discussions get so tedious dont you think?

The concentration can be quite confusing, I think they do it on purpose to screw with us

LOL something we can agree on

56 in Philly, that sticks out like a sore thumb. either Philly's the only city that did extensive testing or there's a reason Philly would have that many more than other cities.