Originally appeared at: http://www.newburyportnews.com/punews/local_story_315224031.html
Group wants action on drug residue in river
By Lynne Hendricks
STAFF WRITER
November 12, 2009 03:58 am
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NEWBURYPORT — The Merrimack River Watershed Council is issuing a call to action to residents living along the Merrimack after tests conducted this summer revealed traces of 16 different pharmaceuticals at several points upstream.
It's been well documented that the river is plagued with bacteria hot spots, thanks to some outdated sewage treatment plants upstream that release raw sewage during a hard rain. But with the additional findings of narcotics, antihistamines, antibiotics and even cocaine showing up in various quantities, MRWC Executive Director Christine Tabak said there's an urgent need for residents to speak up and demand action from state and national leaders.
"Local, state and federal representatives need to know that the locals in the community demand attention by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Environmental Protection to this river," said Tabak yesterday, just a few days after she delivered the Council's annual river assessment at the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge.
Though Newburyport, Amesbury and Merrimac don't depend on the river for their drinking water, there are a number of reasons why the presence of pharmaceuticals upstream is important to residents downstream, if only to document where the dangerous chemicals are coming from, Tabak said. Since they typically come through water treatment plants that have no ability or requirement to remove them, the presence of pharmaceuticals upstream probably means they're present in equal measure in drinking water as well.
"You could be getting a mini dose of Prozac ever day and not know it," said Tabak, who said the Council was able to test this summer thanks to a generous grant and won't likely be able to test again unless it receives grant money to do it.
"Pharmaceutical testing is extremely, extremely expensive," she said. "We had it granted to us. One of our board members works at a company that has cutting-edge equipment that they created that does pharmaceutical sampling."
The river turned up positive results between the Pentucket and Essex Dams — between Lowell and Lawrence — where over 100,000 people draw their drinking water. That's disturbing, considering the documented effects pharmaceuticals have been shown to have on fish species presiding in affected ecosystems, Tabak said.
"We tested for 20 pharmaceuticals, and in the area where people are actually drinking this stuff, we found 16 of them," Tabak said. "We know the quantity is very low, but we don't know the long-term impacts of it. When those quantities found nationwide are causing intersects — male fish turning into female fish — and deformation, what does that mean to a fetus? We just don't know."
As the director of one of the lone agencies that regularly tests the river, Tabak has been upping the urgency of her message since the pharmaceutical test results were learned, and she is continuing to sound the alarm about E-coli bacteria levels in the river as well.
Tabak's pleas for donations to fund a $15,000 "Colilert" system to conduct 24-hour tests on the river have so far gone unanswered, but she hasn't given up hope. In fact, she's added another item to her wish list — a $3,000 nutrient testing system called the YSI Nitrogen Probe, that will allow for immediate test results, so residents will know when hot spots are headed downstream.
"There are people swimming and boating in raw sewage, and they don't know it, because it takes us a month to get our data back from EPA," said Tabak. But it's not just money that's needed to increase testing and monitoring of the river, she said.
Tabak has become aware that National EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is looking to fund an Urban River Study on a river located in region 1, which includes Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont. Since the Merrimack River has served to power business and commerce throughout New England for hundreds of years, and because the residents who depend on the river are paying a hefty price because of it, Tabak feels there's no better river to conduct testing on that the mighty Merrimack.
"I think the people along the Merrimack need to say, 'Hey, this should be us,'" said Tabak, who urges anyone with three minutes to spare to place a call, an e-mail or a letter to their state and federal legislators to advocate for one of the grandest of New England's water resources. "Contact EPA Region 1 and say we want the Merrimack to be the Urban River Study river," she urged. "I've been advocating, but it can't just be me."
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