Antibiotics in Tapwater
Moundsville teen wins award for discovery of antibiotics in local drinking water
By Michelle Saxon
Associated Press Writer
11/27/2000
Curiosity led 17-year-old Ashley Mulroy to discover that the water she and thousands of other residents in West Virginia's Northern Panhandle are drinking is tainted with antibiotics.The science fair project won the Linsly School senior international honors. It also made her one of the few researchers in the world who are looking at how antibiotics are ending up in water systems and helping create a generation of antibiotics resistant bacteria. "One of the big concerns that I've been hearing a lot about in the news and in biology class is bacterial resistance, the rise of the infections that we can't treat anymore that we used to be able to," said Mulroy, a Moundsville resident.
Using samples from the Ohio River, two of its tributaries and tap water from municipal systems in Moundsville, Proctor and Wheeling, Mulroy found traces of penicillin, tetracycline or vancomycin. The sample sites were near hospitals, wastewater treatment plants and farms. The highest concentrations came from streams that passed by farms. Antibiotics are often given to the animals for health reasons or to promote growth, Mulroy said. Her findings earned her this year's Stockholm Junior Water Prize, an international environmental award for water research.
The issue of drug-resistant bacteria is not new for the United States. Finding such organisms in water wastewater is, said Charles Sorber, an environmental engineer with the University of Texas of the Permian Basin and a judge for the Stockholm prize. Antibiotics' presence in water is a problem because bacteria exposed to the drugs over long periods could become resistant and pass that trait on to future generations.
Mulroy found E. coli in her samples and discovered a resistance of the three antibiotics. "The level of resistance varied directly with the level of contamination," she added. Similar research has been conducted in Europe for years, said Joseph Bumgarner, a research chemist for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Mulroy's idea for her project came after reading about a German study on pharmaceuticals in water. Antibiotics end up in tap water because humans and animals don't fully metabolize the chemicals. The United States manufactures about 50 million pounds of antibiotics annually, said Bumgarner. Sixty percent is used for human medicine and 40 percent is used in the agriculture industry.
The EPA is currently studying the Neuse River in North Carolina for antibiotics. The federal agency is concentrating on a portion of the river that winds through North Carolina's hog-growing region. A concern is with bacteria found in animal's digestive systems. "The ones that survive the exposure to antibiotics in the gut of the animal are usually the most resistant," Bumgarner said. Finding resistant bacteria is a "frightening prospect" because of a potential effect on human health, he said. It's too early to tell if such bacteria is living in the Neuse River. "The indications are good enough that we are definitely continuing," Bumgarner said. The issue of resistant bacteria is expected to be "increasingly important over time," said Dr. Danae Bixler, director of infectious disease epidemiology at the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources. "We are really just beginning to address it here in the state," he said. Filtering antibiotics from drinking water may require a change in how the nation's water plants operate. The sand filter in Wheeling's water plant is typical. Water is purified as it percolates through the sand. Yet, "chemical compounds sometimes have the ability to pass through water treatment plants and get into the water system, which is what she demonstrated," Bumgarner said. Wheeling water plant supervisor Philip Kowalski said he hasn't confirmed the presence of antibiotics, but agreed that a sand filter probably wouldn't be able to block antibiotics. The plant provides water to about 60,000 residents. Mulroy's research suggests a charcoal filter, commonly used in home filter systems, could absorb 93 percent of potential antibiotics. A commercial charcoal filter system could cost about $750,000 in initial costs and millions to maintain, Kowalski said. Mulroy said she will make her findings available to the EPA in the hopes that will serve as a "call to action" for future studies and potential solutions.
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