Medications and illegal drugs are polluting streams in and around at least one major US city, new research reveals. Few studies have looked at the presence of illicit drugs in such waters.
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“It’s not really better or worse; it’s just different”, Rosi-Marshall said.
Researchers can’t say if the effects they found in the lab are present in the Gwynns Falls or other streams – there many other stressors, such as nutrients like nitrogen and salt runoff, that influence the ecosystems, Rosi-Marshall said.
And these aren’t soft drugs; they include methamphetamine and amphetamine.
More drugs and higher concentrations turned up in the 2014 samples from the Gwynns Falls than in the first round taken in 2013. Numerous drugs, including amphetamine, were detected in stream sites, with illicit drug levels highest in the most urban streams. Researchers also identified amphetamine, a stimulant that is widely used and abused; among its legal uses is to treat attention deficit disorder.
That may sound like an advantage for the creatures that feed on flies, but Rosi-Marshall said there isn’t enough information to know if that is the case.
The Oregon Ridge samples contained some of the same substances, but at extremely low levels, some barely detectable. The highest concentrations of illegal drugs were measured at stream sites closest to the city of Baltimore. Numerous medications that people ingest are passed out of the body when they go to the bathroom, and many of them then pass untreated through wastewater plants and are discharged into rivers and streams.
Over the past 18 years, a team of researchers have been studying the Gwynns Falls through the Baltimore Ecosystem Study. Such crumbling infrastructure is not unusual, either, Rose-Marshall noted, but a nationwide challenge. “We found that when artificial streams were exposed to amphetamine at a concentration similar to what we found in parts of the Gwynns Falls watershed, there were measurable and concerning effects to the base of the aquatic food web”.
In the layer of single-cell algae and bacteria that makes stream beds so slick – known as biofilm – they found the drugs’ presence stunted photosynthesis and changed the mix of organisms present. Since 1983, Cary Institute scientists have produced the unbiased research needed to inform effective management and policy decisions.
The growth of biofilms – the slippery organisms you find on rocks at the bottom of streams – was suppressed after exposure to these drugs. And the aquatic insects in those streams developed more quickly, emerging from their crawling life stage to flying adults much earlier than insects kept in untreated artificial stream systems.
“We need to invest in maintaining and repairing our aging underground water infrastructure and potentially develop new technology”, Rosi-Marshall said.
It appears aquatic life – the moss that grows on rocks, the bacteria that live in the water and the bugs that hatch there – are the unexpected victims of Americans’ struggle with drug addiction.
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– This article is published with permission from The Bay Journal.
