Environmental contamination from pharmaceutically and hormonally active compounds is currently a topic of intense interest to both the scientific community and the general public. The scientific community has significant interest in the issues of endocrine disruption and antibiotic resistance, and the public is very interested in patterns of human behavior that affect the environment in which we live as well as its sustainability.

  Does it describe a new discovery or a new methodology that's useful to others?

This study was unique in that it developed analytical methods to measure a significant number of compounds (95 pharmaceuticals, detergents, fragrances, and other organic wastewater compounds) and tested for their occurrence in water resources across the United States. As the first investigation of these commonly used chemicals at such a wide geographic scope, it brought home to many that the way we use and dispose of many chemicals in our daily lives affects whether they will enter our water resources.

  What were some of the circumstances that led you to do this research?

In 1998, a group of USGS scientists met to develop research goals that would carry us into the next century. With the early findings of select pharmaceutical compounds in European waters, we realized that there was a fundamental need to determine if a wide range of contaminants of emerging concern were present in our nation's water resources. We felt that the USGS was uniquely posed to tackle such a research effort at the national scale.

  Could you summarize the significance of your paper in layman's terms?

This study documented that a broad range of rarely measured chemicals found in residential, industrial, and agricultural wastewaters commonly occurs in mixtures at low concentrations in streams downstream from areas of intense urbanization and animal production. This means that these compounds are entering our water resources across a variety of climatic and hydrologic conditions. Although these are not surprising results, this is the first national-scale study of these organic wastewater contaminants in water resources of the United States. This study is the beginning of a long-term process of characterizing the occurrence, fate, and effects of these compounds in our nation's waters.

Dana Kolpin
Research Hydrologist
U.S. Geological Survey
Iowa City, Iowa
USA