US consensus - there are chemical trace elements in recycled water ...

... but they are 'unlikely' to pose a risk.

Comments made at a recent forum in California, bound to get people on both sides of the recycled water debate in Australia talking.

In summary:

- there are 60-80,000 chemicals currently in existence in the US.

- chemicals are everywhere in the environment at low levels of concentration and the risk is unavoidable.

- there is greater exposure to chemicals in food and air.

- non-detection of chemicals does not equal safe or zero and safe does not equal non-detection.

- PPCPs may not cause an immediate disease, but they can lower human resistance to other infections or make humans more vulnerable to cancers.

- public perception does count. That means erring on the side of being careful when the harm of a substance is not known for certain.

(Note that this forum was generally dealing with the issue of recycled water for non-potable use.)

Imagine if the Toowoomba City Council had approach the recycled water issue on the basis that 'there are trace elements of chemicals in recycled water but we don't think they pose a risk - now let's really examine the issue', rather than the 'nothing gets through the membranes', 'it's done all over the world', 'there are no other options', 'you're all luddites' and 'if you don't like it you can buy bottled water' bull#$%!* everyone in Toowoomba had to put up with.

Excerpt from Bay City News Wire (annotated):

Santa Rosa: Forum discusses drugs, chemicals in recycled water

20 April 2007

There are trace elements of pharmaceuticals, personal care products and other unregulated chemicals in recycled water but they are not likely to pose a risk to human health.

That was the consensus of a panel of experts who addressed the Santa Rosa Board of Public Utilities on Thursday during a workshop session on the presence of the contaminants in recycled water.

The concern nationwide is that the presence of the PPCPs, pharmaceutical and personal care products, in wastewater causes endocrine disruptions in humans such as low sperm counts, premature puberty in girls, testicular cancer in young men and breast cancer in some women.

But a 2005 study concluded that no studies to date have indicated that association according to Dr. Shane Snyder, a research and development project manager with the Southern Nevada Water Authority who has helped conduct five national studies. [Note - these studies have never made their way to Toowoomba - perhaps they should.]

There are 60,000 to 80,000 chemicals currently in use in the United States and humans face exposure to chemicals in unused medicines that are flushed down toilets or those in shampoos and cosmetics that enter the water during washing.

That water is eventually treated and recycled and used for irrigation of food crops, landscape irrigation, including playgrounds, and recreational facilities, including swimming pools.

In Santa Rosa, 6,400 acres of farmland, vineyards, and public and private landscaping use recycle water. Eighty-five percent is for agricultural uses.

Santa Rosa pumps four billion gallons of wastewater a year to The Geysers, where it is used to generate electricity, but another one billion gallons of treated recycled water is released when water levels are high and recycling use is minimal into the Laguna de Santa Rosa, said Richard Dowd, chairman of the Santa Rosa Board of Public Utilities.

"We are not allowed to recycle it for potable water,'' Down said.

Concern about PPCPs arose nationwide with the feminization of male fish in effluent dominated rivers. Fish feminization was observed in Boulder, Colo., the Potomac River in West Virginia, in the Las Vegas Wash and at multiple sites in Minnesota.

Studies indicate and the experts at the workshop Thursday said chemicals are everywhere in the environment at low levels of concentration and the risk is unavoidable. These include mercury in fish, dioxins in meat and dairy and pesticides in produce. Chemicals are also present in indoor dust.

Laura Kennedy, a risk analysis specialist with Kennedy/Jenks Consultants [a group which consults on recycled water systems], said the intakes of PPCPs in recycled water are less than the allowed intakes of regulated chemicals in drinking water and there is greater exposure to chemicals in food and air.

Non-detection of chemicals does not equal safe or zero and safe does not equal non-detection, Snyder said. Public perception must be considered and if endocrine disruptors are a human health issues, food will be the greatest contributor, Snyder said.

"Pharmaceuticals in water are not likely to pose human health risk," he said. And, quoting Albert Einstein, Snyder said, "'Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted.'"

But public perception does count, said Brenda Adelman of the Russian River Watershed Protection Committee, and she said the "precautionary principle" should apply. That means erring on the side of being careful when the harm of a substance is not known for certain.

Adelman said the effects of PPCPs on aquatic life and their secondary impacts are not known.

She said PPCPs may not cause an immediate disease, but they can lower human resistance to other infections or make humans more vulnerable to cancers.

"Remember, when you eat fish, you are eating what they eat," Adelman said.

Dr. David Smith, manager of Santa Rosa's incremental recycled water program, said the Board of Public Utilities requested information about PPCPs in recycled water in 1996, held a study session on them two years ago and will do so in the future.

See - Bay City News Wire - Recycled water forum.