Course, I ended up picking back up smoking when I moved into the city. Coincidence?

I believe the AP article is referring to sampling that Washoe County
Water Resources conducted for some of their source water. The map in
the AP article has a separate "dot" for Truckee Meadows sampling
(sampling that TMWA conducted through a national laboratory). The story
didn't really spell out the difference very well. TMWA had a press
conference this past spring to spell out that TMWA source water had no
hits for pharmaceuticals. Not long after that the County results posted
and they had some hits. I'm guessing that's why they show "Reno" as
having detects but "Truckee Meadows" as having no detects.

Much of these detects are due to the fact that the technology has gotten
so much better in actually finding the pharms in the water. The EPA is
still investigating any future regulations and will probably investigate
for a while. These detects are in the part per trillion range which is
very very low.

Anyway, TMWA's water has been tested and there were no hits for
pharmaceuticals in our source water as well as our finished water. The
article stating "Reno" was actually Washoe County's result which is
misleading as TMWA serves almost all of the greater Reno/Sparks area's
drinking water.

Please let me know if you have any other questions.

It seems that the bulk of Reno, NV has a little less to worry about than AP's FUD-inducing article mentions.

Also, one of the major reasons a lot of the painkillers show up frequently is because of DEA regulations - hospitals & nursing homes & pharmacies have to dispose of controlled substances in certain ways, and often that involves flushing it. Eventually they realized this stuff is turning up in the water, and adjusted their guidelines.... so now we're encouraged to mix most unused drugs with kittylitter or coffeegrounds before disposal. Details: [www.smarxtdisposal.net]

But a lot is still supposed to be flushed. So the problem won't be going away in the near future....

@IHaveAFreezeRay: Sadly, no list of cities. Most won't or can't test (for financial & legal reasons) for non-regulated contaminants like this.... and because the chemicals are so durable, it's unlikely there are *any* bodies of water in the U.S. without some trace contamination. One of the best ways to figure out if a 'pristine' source has had human interference is to test for caffeine. Even when there's no apparent human pollution, there's an extraordinary number of streams that test positive for caffeine, just because if anyone anywhere upstream in the watershed used the river, stream, or aquifer, they probably left some pharmaceuticals in their wake, and caffeine is one the easiest to test for. (Though it does breakdown in strong sunlight, so the absence of caffeine doesn't prove a pristine source).

Anyway, imo, the places that tested positive are just the places that bothered to check thoroughly. And most of the trace pharmaceuticals showing up are related to agriculture, not human use. And to fix anything would mean $200 million dollar upgrades to wastewater treatment systems in *every* city affected, plus stricter runoff controls on farms. So it's either spend unprecedented funds on sewage infrastructure rehab AND change our farming culture to comply with extremely strict regulations, or just get used to having trace amounts of durable, synthetic chemicals in treated drinking water.

whos with me on this!?

So's uranium but I don't want that in my water either. Thanks to my moms obsession with us getting enough of it my teeth have dental fluorosis. Avoid.

Consumerist needs to stop with the hand-wringing and needlessly scary. This is a non-event.

OTOH

If I'm making kool/aid, tang, tea, lemonade or whatever. I use tap water.

Because whatever I'm mixing into the water kills the slight chlorine taste.

I only drink bottled water (but I'm paying $1 per gallon) I can taste the chlorine in tap water.

/Haven't gotten around to installing a RO filter in the kitchen.

/water from small plastic bottles tastes like plastic sometimes.

/Will drink tap water (and make a funny face) if I'm thirsty.

/Sparklets == undrinkable to me, It's 100 times worse than tap water.

@IHaveAFreezeRay: If you floss, brush and avoid backwashing into your ba-ba, it might not smell so much.

We use bottled water because we have well water. And it is ok for showers, laundry and such, but it just doesn't taste quite right to drink it. But we buy the big gallons and just use a glass. I could get a reverse osmosis system and that will remove the taste, but I'm cheap. Of course it might save us some money with the tap water as my wife takes carbamazepine. Just kidding.

But, I wonder if a cholesterol altering drug would be a good thing in the water supply?

We have a PUR filter so I wonder if that helps things. I know the water is now drinkable again.

You know you CAN wash the bottles.

That being said I drink our tap water(which comes from lake micigan) and it tastes fine so even though they may not get everything out its a billion times better than if they didn't filter it.

Pharmaceutical Waste!
Recommended by 9 out of 10 people who drink waste.

Mexico water is safe too, our bodies just aren't adjusted to the bacteria down there. When Mexicans come here they can have the same issues.

@dougyfresh:

Well in Mexico they say don't drink the water so that doesn't count. The US water supply is pretty damn safe though. If Americans would learn to safely dispose of pills, instead of flushing them down the toliet, we wouldn't have the problem. The problem lies with us, we are the ones that pollute the water.

All kidding aside, it's fine. Many parts of the world already have high fluoride levels, and there's no need to add it to the water. It's natural.

Flouridation is endorsed by The American Dental Association, World Health Organization, the CDC, and the American Medical Association.

See [en.wikipedia.org] for a list controversial claims and info from both sides of the argument.

@Trai_Dep: You're still leaving 1 million uncovered. Quick, start flushing Mirapex down the toilet before the restless legs syndrome epidemic decimates the poor!

I live in one of those cities.

So, does the Brita filter or any of those things make any sort of difference?

I had to drink bottled water while in mexico, along with brushing my teeth with it. I showered with rain water so I dunno where that fits in.

Anyone know of a list of cities or counties with water that's safe from pharmaceuticals? I just want to know whether my area is on that list, and looking at the water authority website is more useless than blind people an eyeglass store.

Water is nice and clean where I live. I'll purchase a bottle of water now and then but I'll reuse that bottle till it gets that funky smell then I'll get a new one. People that only drink bottle water make me laugh. We grew up drinking out of lead pipes and never drank bottled water as children but as adults you will pay 1.39 for 20oz of filtered water.

I refuse to stop drinking water from the tap. I wonder if these people that drink only bottled water brush their teeth with it as well and use it to take a bath.

Mmmmmm.

..... and me. I laughed a little too hard. ;)

But, I wonder if a cholesterol altering drug would be a good thing in the water supply? I wonder if Plavix is in on this??

Chicago, for example, found a cholesterol medication and a nicotine derivative

In other news, medical researchers are stymied to explain a sudden drop in cholesterol levels in Chicagoans, while at the same time smoking seems to be on the rise.

"I've never smoked before, " quoted one confused Chicagoan, "but in the last couple of weeks, after I've returned home from running, I have a strange urge to light one up."