Contaminant Transport and Effects

For some fish living downstream of sewage treatment plants the answer is yes. U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists and their colleagues published a paper in Environmental Science and Technology documenting that specific antidepressants and their degradates found in wastewater discharged into streams by municipal wastewater treatment plants are taken up into the bodies of fish living downstream...

In a 2004-2009 study, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists found that pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities can be a significant source of pharmaceuticals to the environment. Effluents from two wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) that receive discharge from pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities (PMFs) had 10 to 1000 times higher concentrations of pharmaceuticals than effluents from 24...

Two national-scale reconnaissance studies recently conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) were the first to collect baseline information on the environmental occurrence of pharmaceuticals, personal-care products, detergents, flame retardants, naturally occurring sterols, and other organic contaminants in ground water and untreated sources of drinking water in the United States. These...

Researchers with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) recently investigated 51 streams in nine Midwestern States to determine the presence of a wide range of herbicides, their degradation byproducts and antibiotics. Herbicides were detected in most water samples, which were collected to coincide with runoff events following herbicide application, but antibiotics were detected in only 1 percent of the...

The USGS's National Reconnaissance of Pharmaceuticals in U.S. Streams is making an impact in the scientific and regulatory communities.

Discover Magazine has named the Toxic Substances Hydrology Program's "National Reconnaissance of Pharmaceuticals, Hormones, and Other Organic Wastewater Contaminants in Streams" as one of the 100 top science stories of 2002.