Scientists search for chemicals

Friday, Aug. 11, 2000 | 11:05 a.m.

Federal scientists plan to start looking for ingredients from prescription drugs to suntan lotion in the Las Vegas Wash and the Las Vegas Bay during the next year.

Christian Daughton, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency environmental chemistry branch chief, said that the Las Vegas area has been selected because its waters contain urban runoff without agricultural sources.

Daughton began research on a wide range of chemicals people put into and onto their bodies in 1998. "I call it pollution from personal actions," he told the Lake Mead Water Quality Forum meeting at the Grant Sawyer State Building on Thursday.

In the past 10 years, European scientists have discovered drugs such as estrogen from birth control pills to musk from cosmetics in water supplies, Daughton said. The United States has just started looking for the chemicals.

Fifty potentially toxic substances have been identified in U.S. water sources since last year, he said.

For example, anti-epileptic drugs affect developing brains, but no one knows at what level such effects occur.

"No one has looked for these things, because scientists have been so busy looking at major pollution from industrial and agricultural sources such as feedlots," he said.

Since more drugs are being prescribed than ever before, scientists expect to find larger concentrations in the drinking water supplies, said Daughton, who works in EPA's Office of Research and Development in Las Vegas.

One simple step could be to educate the medical community and the drug manufacturers about the potential impacts of pharmaceuticals in drinking water, Daughton said.

The U.S. Geological Survey has already started to look for antibiotics, food additives and new pesticides in the local waters as part of a national survey.