Pills and gills.
Something fishy is going on in a major waterway just outside Seattle, Washington. Fish found in Washington’s Puget Sound have tested positive for cocaine, Xanax, Prozac, Lipitor, and a cocktail of 77 other drugs, according to a new study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). And no, humans shouldn’t go swimming there to find a fix. And no, underwater drug dealers aren’t responsible. Instead, the human drugs leeching into the local waterway is a result of contaminated discharge water. Shocker, right?
Jim Meador, an environmental toxicologist at the NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle, recently published a study that offers two options for this strange situation.
One possibility is that people in the areas surrounding the Puget Sound use more of the drugs found in the water, including anti-depressants. After all, the Seattle region was ranked second out 33 U.S cities for the highest suicide attempts, according to a 2010 study. However, it is likely that the problem lies within the poor treatment of waste water.
“The concentrations in effluent [waste water] were higher than we expected,” Meador said in the Seattle Times. “We analyzed samples for 150 compounds and we had 61 percent of them detected in effluent. So we know these are going into the estuaries.”
The detected drugs could’ve entered the Puget Sound in several different ways. One of the most accepted ways the drugs could’ve entered the water is when a person discontinues using a drug, they may flush the leftover supply down the toilet. With the water waste not properly filtered by treatment plants, the drugs can easily find their way to the waterways. Similarly, when a human takes a pill, their body may not absorb all of the chemicals, and they will discharge the rest of the drug through their urine.
It goes without saying that human drugs seeping into the rivers cause major problems for the fish, and, in turn, the entire ecosystem. For example, in the heavily polluted parts of the Potomac River near Washington DC, intersex fish have been found. Experts believe this is the result of high levels of estrogen from birth control and menopausal medication finding its way into the water.
The affects of fish exposed to anti-anxiety drugs are equally grim. In a study from the Scientific American, perch that were placed in clean water were less aggressive than fish that had been exposed to benzodiazepines—sedative drugs, such as Xanax and Valium. In addition, the fish that were exposed to benzodiazepines explored more dangerous areas, ate faster, and put themselves in riskier situations, a behavior that could spell bad news for the ecosystem. For example, if perch eat more zooplankton at a faster rate, then there is less zooplankton to eat algae, which causes algae blooms. Additionally, more fearless fish may expose themselves to more predators, which could then impact the perch population.
To combat the issue, the World Health Organization is calling on water treatment plants to seek methods to improve waste treatment in order to remove drugs and contaminants. Additionally, there are a few things you can do at home to mitigate the presence of human drugs in our waterways. The most obvious way is to not flush unused pills down the toilet or pour them down the drain. Instead, you can research local drug take-back programs to properly dispose of your unused drugs.
