Tainted Drinking Water

[Kilgour Farms]

Tainted drinking water in Philly and NYC



Reports don't reveal all
Most Americans probably think they have a good idea of what’s being detected in their water. Federal law requires water providers to distribute annual “consumer confidence reports” that reveal levels of regulated contaminants. Providers are not, however, required to tell people if they find a contaminant that is not on a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency list. And there are no pharmaceuticals on the EPA list.
In Philadelphia, the water department has not informed its 1.5 million users that traces of 56 pharmaceuticals or their byproducts — like the active ingredients in drugs to treat depression, anxiety, high cholesterol, fever and pain — have been detected in the drinking water, and that 63 pharmaceuticals or byproducts had been found in the city’s source watersheds.
Initially balking at the AP’s request to provide test results, Philadelphia Water Department spokeswoman Laura Copeland said, “It would be irresponsible to communicate to the public about this issue, as doing so would only generate questions that scientific research has not yet answered. We don’t want to create the perception where people would be alarmed.”
New York City water officials declined repeated requests for an interview and waited more than three months before participating in an AP survey, supplying information only after being informed that every other major city in the nation had cooperated.
The AP learned that the New York state health department and the U.S. Geological Survey detected heart medicine, infection fighters, estrogen, anti-convulsants, a mood stabilizer and the active ingredient in an anti-anxiety medication in the city’s watershed upstate. And the city’s Department of Environmental Protection ultimately said that it does not test its downstate drinking water.


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Tainted drinking water kept under wraps - More health news - MSNBC.com