URI Professor Studies Effects of Pharmaceutical Pollution on Wastewater Systems
By Ellie Sennhenn / ecoRI News contributor
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Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) are a diverse group of chemicals that include all
drugs (both prescription and over-the-counter medications) and non-medicinal
consumer chemicals, such as the fragrances in lotions and soaps and the
ultraviolet filters in sunscreens, according to the Environmental Protection
Agency. These compounds are considered contaminants because they are released
into water systems through sewage or agricultural runoff.
Finding out what happens when these drugs enter the
environment is the premise of Thomas Boving’s recent research into PPCPs. These
pollutants occur at low concentrations in soil and groundwater, according to
Boving, chair of the University of Rhode Island Department of Geosciences.
However, seemingly insignificant measurements can accumulate over time,
creating potential adverse health effects, he said.
“These environments become breeding grounds for these
bacteria, and if they spread, then we have a real problem,” Boving said.
One possible effect is antimicrobial resistance, according
to Boving, which occurs when there is an overuse or misuse of antimicrobial
compounds designed to treat or prevent infections, such as antibiotics,
antivirals and antiparasitics.
Wastewater facilities are not designed to filter out PPCPs, according to Boving, allowing these compounds to linger in the environment.
PPCPs can originate in hospitals, veterinary sources,
industrial sites that produce pharmaceuticals, waste from livestock, and sewage
from households, according to Boving. These compounds either enter wastewater
treatment plants or are leached into the ground through septic systems.
The effluent from treatment plants, including related
biosolids, may contain PPCPs. From these sources, PPCPs can leach into the
environment to find their way into soil, rivers and lakes, groundwater and
sediments, potentially contaminating drinking water resources and crops or
being absorbed by aquatic organisms, thereby entering the food web.
“If [the compound is a] sedative, it’s still a sedative when
it leaves the body, when it enters the wastewater and it enters the food
chain,” Boving said. “So, obviously the concentration goes down because of
dilution, but it’s still a sedative.”
This leads compounds such as antimicrobials to re-enter the
system, according to Boving, and bacteria can adapt to resist them.
“We only have a certain limited arsenal of these compounds,
and they lose their effectiveness when the bacteria simply get used to it and
build up a resistance,” Boving said.
That arsenal, including drugs like penicillin and
ciprofloxacin, are part of what define modern medicine. If resistance continues
to grow, routine infections could once again become life-threatening.
With the goal of better understanding PPCPs, Boving took his
research to the Indian Institute of Technology in India, in spring 2023 on a
Fulbright Scholarship.
He chose to study in India, he said, because India has a
high population density and easy access to pharmaceuticals and concentrated
sewage, according to Boving. In many areas, untreated or partially treated
sewage flows directly into rivers, he said.
These conditions converge in New Delhi, the main site of
Boving’s research.
A major river system carries industrial and human waste
through the city, according to Boving. Tributary channels collect concentrated
wastewater year-round. The systems flood from heavy rains during monsoon
season, but for the remaining nine months, water flow is almost entirely
sewage.
“The water is black,” Boving said. “It smells. It’s loaded
with everything from fecal matter to bacteria to PPCPs.”
To trace how pharmaceuticals travel in the environment,
Boving’s team tracked surface water and groundwater at a series of sites. In
each location, they tested the actual river or stream and then drilled three
wells at varying depths.
Out of the 24 compounds they tested for, Boving found some
degraded quickly as they moved through the environment. Others persisted,
showing little change in concentration even at deeper levels. However, some
compounds appeared to increase with depth, suggesting that contaminated
groundwater might also be flowing in from elsewhere.
Though India’s pharmaceutical pollution is larger in scale,
the United States shares a similar problem, according to Boving, because its
water treatment facilities also do not remove PPCPs.
“We’re using the same compounds,” Boving said. “The same
antibiotics, the same painkillers, the same hormones.”
Rhode Island, with its dense neighborhoods and widespread
use of septic systems, is vulnerable to PPCP pollution, according to Boving.
“If someone in a neighborhood is taking antibiotics, it goes
right into the [septic] system,” he said.
Outbreaks of illness, such as during flu season, can mean
repeated releases of pharmaceuticals into the same groundwater supply,
according to Boving. Septic systems near hospitals or elderly care facilities,
where medications are administered regularly, are also a hot spot for PPCPs.
The EPA requires water systems to perform routine monitoring
for a variety of contaminants, such as PFAS and many volatile organic
compounds, according to Annemarie Beardsworth, a state Department of Health
spokesperson. However, the EPA does not require water systems to monitor for
pharmaceutical contaminants.
It’s an uphill battle. First, there has to be a recognition
of a problem, and that’s basically where we are right now. We’re building a
database for people to understand that, yeah, there is an issue here.”
— URI professor Thomas Boving
Without enforceable limits, municipalities and utility
services do not receive pressure or resources to test for these compounds,
according to Boving.
This leaves researchers to “chase a problem that doesn’t
exist” in the eyes of the law, according to Boving.
Moving forward in his research, Boving hopes to work with
engineers, hydrologists and chemists to help develop wastewater treatment
systems that filter out PPCPs.
“If we weren’t finding any compounds [in our research],
there would be no issue,” he said. “The problem is we are finding everything
under the sun.”
