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<br />Denver Post.com - River study stirs up concerns <br /> <br />Page 1 of2 <br /> <br />River study stirs up concerns <br />Little-known pollutants in S. Platte <br /> <br />By TheJ> Stein <br />Denver Post Environment Reporter <br /> <br />Monday, March 18, 2002 - A federal science agency hopes to take a harder look at the South Platte after its <br />study revealed the river's water contains a broad range of little-known pollutants such as caffeine, antibiotics, <br />household disinfectants and hormones. <br /> <br />"Water reuse and recycling is becoming a bigger and bigger part of our water-distribution system," said Ed <br />Furlong, a research chemist with the U.S. Geological Survey and one of the study's architects. <br /> <br />"As downstream communities turn to sources that contain treated wastewater, it will become invaluable for <br />water utilities to know what's in it." <br /> <br />Analysis showed the levels of these chemicals in the South Platte River sample ranked among the top 25 <br />percent in the country. <br /> <br />But Furlong, who designed the methods used to detect some of the chemical compounds considered in the <br />study, cautioned that it was too early to assess what long-term risk that exposure to tiny amounts of the <br />pollutants could pose to people or wildlife. <br /> <br />"This is the first field assessment of these compounds, and with one or two samples, you only have a <br />snapshot of the river," Furlong said. <br /> <br />In addition, the USGS specifically looked for places that chemists felt would be likely to show this kind of <br />contamination. The Commerce City sampling location where the USGS took a sample from the river is just <br />downstream of a major sewage plant. <br /> <br />"So it would be a real mistake to assume the entire South Platte is like that," he said. <br /> <br />Conducted in 1999 and 2000, the study looked for 95 pharmaceuticals and other organic wastes downstream <br />from major cities. The chemicals were selected because people use them in large quantities and because they <br />may have human or environmental-health effects. <br /> <br />Many of the compounds are not covered by drinking-water standards or government health advisories, and <br />municipal wastewater-treatment plants aren't designed to remove them from sewage. <br /> <br />The South Platte sample showed significant traces of the antibiotic erythromycin, cholesterol, cotinine (a <br />breakdown product of nicotine), dichloro-benzene and a plasticizer in a family of compounds known as <br />phthalates. <br /> <br />Scientists know little about how much of these chemicals exist in the environment, how they're distributed <br />and how long they persist, but they worry because many, particularly pharmaceuticals and personal-care <br />products, were designed to stimulate a physical response in humans, plants and animals. <br /> <br />One group of compounds known as endocrine disrupters is believed to interfere with hormones that direct the <br />development of organisms. Others fear that antibiotics found in many samples couid be creating a class of <br />resistant bacteria in nature's test tube. <br /> <br />These two chemical families represent only a fraction of what's draining into rivers and streams, and no one <br />has studied the cumulative effect of consuming low levels of the entire suite of compounds over the long <br />term. <br /> <br />While it may be too early to draw conclusions, the research has introduced a new class of contaminant - <br /> <br />http://www.denverpost.comlcda/article/detaiI/0.1040.11%7E469341%7E36%7E%7E.00.html <br /> <br />3/22/02 <br />