[Southern_AZ_MWS] OSU scientists detect traces of drugs in wastewater of 10 cities

[Cathy Mullan]

Another thing to consider when we use recycle wastewater back into  
drinking water... drugs found there.

Ira Flatow on NPR's Science Friday (Aug. 24th KJZZ) asked Dr. Jennifer  
Field during his interview with her if this is being cleaned out of our  
wastewater...
topic: using sewage to track illegal drug use
http://www.sciencefriday.com/pages/2007/Aug/hour2_082407.html
Jennifer Field
Professor, Environmental Molecular Toxicology
Oregon State University
  Corvallis, Oregon

Article about it:
August 22, 2007
http://www.dailytidings.com/2007/0822/stories/ 
0822_wastewater_testing.php
OSU scientists detect traces of drugs in wastewater of 10 cities
Corvalis Gazette-Times

  Oregon State University researchers have figured out how to detect  
traces of drugs, from cocaine to caffeine, using just a teaspoon of  
wastewater from a city’s sewage treatment plant.

The team of scientists tested 10 unnamed American cities for remnants  
of drugs, both legal and illegal, from wastewater streams. They were  
able to show that they could get a good snapshot of what drugs people  
are using.

  Samples were taken from the Corvallis Wastewater Treatment facility as  
part of the study’s early research, used to see if further testing was  
feasible, according to Guy Allen, a city wastewater treatment  
technician.

  “It’s like a very diluted urine sample collected from an entire  
community,” said Jennifer Field, an Oregon State environmental  
toxicologist who led the team that developed the tests.

  Field presented the study’s results Tuesday at a meeting of the  
American Chemical Society in Boston with colleagues Daniel Sudakin, an  
OSU toxicologist, Caleb Banta-Green, a drug epidemiologist at the  
University of Washington, and Aurea Chiaia Hernandez, an OSU graduate  
student.

  Two federal agencies have taken samples from U.S. waterways to see if  
drug testing a whole city is doable, but they haven’t gotten as far as  
the Oregon researchers.

  The analysis can detect the presence of a long list of illicit drugs,  
from methamphetamine to ecstasy and other markers of human presence  
such as caffeine and cotinine, a break-down product of nicotine from  
cigarette smoke.

  The test might not be used to finger any single person as a drug user,  
but it would help federal law enforcement and other agencies track the  
spread of dangerous drugs, such as methamphetamines, across the  
country.

  Cities in the experiment ranged from 17,000 to 600,000 in population.  
Field plans to start a survey for drugs in the wastewater of at least  
40 Oregon communities.

  Testing water for drugs is an area of city wastewater management that  
is starting to gain more ground. Tom Penpraze, utilities division  
manager, chairs a statewide committee looking into trying to control  
unused prescription drugs before they enter the wastewater system.  
Leftover drugs and unused medicines are the primary problem.

  “The convenient and expedient thing to do is to flush them down the  
toilet,” Penpraze said.

Although wastewater is often tested for contaminants after it is  
treated as a measure of potential environmental impact, this new  
approach allows small samples to be drawn over a 24-hour period as  
sewage enters a wastewater plant, before it is treated, to get a  
profile of the drugs being used in the community.

  But translating a tiny trace of a drug into the number of individual  
users is problematic, according to the researchers.

  “Wastewater analysis is a more powerful indicator at the community  
level,” Field said. “We are interested in the ‘community load’ of  
drugs, so we want to take samples as close to the urinal as possible  
without violating the privacy of individuals.”

  Even in their preliminary study, the researchers found patterns over  
time of drug occurrence in wastewater. One urban area with a gambling  
industry had meth levels more than five times higher than other cities.  
Yet methamphetamine levels were virtually nonexistent in some smaller  
Midwestern locales, said Field.

  She said one fairly affluent community scored low for illicit drugs  
except for cocaine. Cocaine and ecstasy tended to peak on weekends and  
drop on weekdays, she said, while methamphetamine and prescription  
drugs were steady throughout the week.

  Field said her study suggests that a key tool currently used by drug  
abuse researchers — self-reported drug questionnaires — underestimates  
drug use.
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