No matter how safe your local government says the drinking water is, chances are that there are some toxins in it, including the possibility of drugs, both medicinal and recreational.
Recent research conducted on the water at and near sewage treatment plants in the estuaries of the Puget Sound found that juvenile chinook salmon tested positive for in excess of 80 different drugs, including antidepressants, cocaine, and various other medications used by humans.
The same drugs were found in local staghorn sculpin and the tissues of migratory chinook salmon tested in estuaries far from the sewage treatment plants where the water had previously been considered pristine.
According to a report in The Seattle Times:
“The medicine chest of common drugs also included Flonase, Aleve and Tylenol. Paxil, Valium and Zoloft, Tagamet, OxyContin and Darvon. Nicotine and caffeine. Fungicides, antiseptics and anticoagulants. And Cipro and other antibiotics galore.â€
The question is whether the large amount of drugs found in the water and the fish in this region is due to the fact that individuals in the area take more drugs or whether it is due to the processes being used by the wastewater-treatment plants in the area.
According to Jim Meador, an environmental toxicologist at NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle and lead author on a paper published in the journal Environmental Pollution, it appears as though the presence of the drugs in the water is due to the inability of the wastewater plants to fully remove these chemicals during treatment. High faecal coliform counts point to leaky septic tanks also being part of the problem.
Puget Sound is not the only area of water to have high counts of pharmaceutical and recreational drugs however; this is a global problem. Recently tap water and river water tested in the UK have also shown high levels of cocaine, antidepressants, anticoagulants, antibiotics and other drugs.
The only way to ensure that your drinking water is toxin-free is to ensure that you are drinking filtered water from a water cooler fitted with a good filter such as the Living-Water point-of-use (POU) water coolers which can all be fitted with the Living-Water Triple Activated Carbon Filter for use on cold and ambient water supplies.
