Pond Study Finds Hormones, Steroids, Other Drugs In Mix

     Ten different steroids, hormones, antibiotics and other pharmaceutical products and chemicals were found in six ponds across Cape Cod in a peer-reviewed study published by the Silent Spring Institute last week.
     The chemicals, some of which are known to be hormone-disruptors, were found in extremely low levels in several tests in Oyster Pond in Falmouth, Lewis Pond in the Popponesset Bay watershed on the western edge of Barnstable, Joshua Pond in Barnstable, Flax Pond in Dennis, Flax Pond in Brewster, and Schoolhouse Pond in Brewster.
     The study links the chemicals to septic systems, which do not remove the contaminants from wastewater that leeches into the groundwater and eventually down into ponds.
     “It is not a surprise that we use it, we flush it down the toilet, and then it shows up in our water system. It is not a surprise, but we needed to document it,” said Laurel J. Standley, a senior scientist at the Newton-based Silent Spring Institute.
     The human health effects of the chemicals at low doses have not been investigated, but various studies over the past 10 years have shown that when male fish are exposed to even low levels of certain hormones, including some of those found in the Cape ponds, they adopt female characteristics.
     The study, published in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, follows up on earlier research by the Barnstable County Department of Health and the Environment and the United States Geological Survey, both of which found trace amounts of similar contaminants in wastewater plumes. There also was a highly publicized report earlier this year by the Associated Press that documented numerous instances where pharmaceutical products were found in drinking water supplies of major American cities.
     “People generally think that the soil removes all this stuff, and that the only problem is surface water that receives effluent from wastewater treatment plants directly. But this now proves that it comes through the groundwater into ponds,” Ms. Standley said. “This is really an important step to show that this is happening on a larger scale.”
     There are no federal or state regulations on the compounds, but the issue is a growing concern for the state Department of Environmental Protection, a spokesman for DEP said this week.
     The state convened an “emerging contaminants” summit and has another one scheduled for this fall, with pharmaceuticals and personal care products at the top of the agenda, Edmund J. Coletta, the DEP spokesman, said.
     The state is also involved in two studies investigating the presence of the chemicals in surface and drinking water, but with mounting evidence proving their presence, the next necessary step will be to assess their impacts on human health, he said.
     Ponds on Cape Cod provide a valuable insight into water quality because many of them are fed directly by groundwater, so whatever is in the groundwater is in the ponds, and in many cases, vice versa, Ms. Standley said. Ponds also average the impact of all the septic systems in the vicinity, which provides more useful and easily accessible information than testing just one or two septic system plumes.
     The six ponds tested by Silent Spring were split into two categories based on high and low residential density. The higher density ponds, including Oyster Pond in Falmouth and Lewis Pond in Barnstable, showed significantly more of the chemicals than the others. Each of the ponds was selected because they are not near full-scale wastewater treatment plants, agriculture, or an industry that could contribute these types of chemicals.
     The samples were taken in the middle of the ponds, at half the measured depth.
     The study tested for 29 different chemicals, of which 10 were found, including ibuprofen, an anticonvulsant and mood stabilizing drug, an anti-anxiety drug, a chemical prescribed to increase blood flow, an anti-malaria drug, and another antibiotic, as well as four hormones.
     Eduard Eichner, a water research scientist at the School for Marine Science and Technology at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and an expert on the Cape’s ponds, said the study’s methodology is “pretty straightforward.” “This is something that Silent Spring has been doing for a long time, so I am pretty confident that they have done it correctly,” he said.
     The levels documented by Silent Spring are extremely low, ranging from just fractions to 10 nanograms per liter of water, or a few molecules of the chemicals per trillion molecules of water. Ms. Standley likened the magnitude to throwing a birth control pill into Lewis Pond, a kettle hole pond in Barnstable about 100 yards from shore to shore.
     However, even at similarly low levels, the feminization of male fish has been documented. Fish subject to the contaminants in Great Britain, Canada, and several locations in the United States have been found to produce feminine hormones and develop female sex organs. Then at 10 times the level where the fish start showing problems, they lose the ability to reproduce, Ms. Standley said.
     George Heufelder, director of the county health and environment department, said the ability of researchers to identify minuscule levels of the contaminants has far outstripped their understanding of the toxicology.
     Ms. Standley said a particular complication in assessing whether the compounds are toxic at such low levels, and a source of concern, is that they are being found in a variety of combinations at different levels, and the mixtures may create “additive effects” unseen when people are exposed to them one at a time.
     Testing the impacts of pollutants on human health is also difficult scientifically, she said.
     The only clear way around the problem is highly advanced, and expensive, wastewater treatment technology, she said.
     Ms. Standley said people should not flush their unused medications down the toilet or wash them down the drain, though doing so is likely only a minimal cause of the contamination. People should try to use fewer medications whenever necessary, though she stressed that she is not suggesting anyone forego needed medication.
     She recommended using carbon drinking water filters.
     “If we want safe drinking water and we want fish-safe ponds, for recreation and drinking, then we have to handle this,” she said.
     Mr. Eichner said, “This is a concern, but it is a question of tempering the concerns against what we know about the biological effects. These kinds of compounds are pervasive in our environment. They are a part of our everyday lives.”
     Both Mr. Eichner and Mr. Heufelder, however, had similar advice for communities such as Falmouth and Mashpee that are in the process of adopting townwide wastewater management plans: there is not enough information on the chemicals, what levels are acceptable, and what treatment methods work well to remove them for the towns to take any significant action.
     Mr. Heufelder, who oversees that Massachusetts Alternative Septic System Test Center on the Massachusetts Military Reservation, said the “jury is still out” on whether certain wastewater treatment technologies perform better than others at removing the emerging contaminants. He said the test center has already researched whether standard, Title V septic systems remove them, and the results showed some but not enough. The next step is to look at more soils-based systems, while others have begun studying whether ultraviolet rays or oxidization has an effect.
     He said the wastewater planning and technology industries are all watching closely for any evidence of impacts on human health.
     Mr. Eichner said, “I think it is something to keep an eye on, and something that we need to keep pursuing and see where it ends up. But at this point we don’t have the answer of how much a concern it should be. There is some information about the impacts on fish, but to go to the point of setting regulations, it doesn’t seem mature enough at this point.”
     “The bottom line is it drives home the point of how everything on our peninsula related to water is interconnected to everything else,” he said. “Our wastewater is discharged in the same source as our drinking water and it ends up in the ponds and ends up in the estuaries. So we have to be careful what we put in that water.”