Save the Peaks Coalition

Aaron Lohr | This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
240-482-1380
The Endocrine Society

Male fish that used to be feminized after chemicals, such as the pharmaceutical ethinylestradiol, made it through the Boulder, Colo., Wastewater Treatment Plant and into Boulder Creek, are taking longer to become feminized after a plant upgrade to an activated sludge process, according to a new study. The results will be presented Sunday at The Endocrine Society's 92nd Annual Meeting in San Diego.

Although the levels of the chemicals that the fish swam in were very low even before the upgrade, the chemicals are endocrine disrupters. They mimic estrogen and may disrupt the endocrine (hormone) system of both animals and humans, said the study's principal investigator, David Norris, PhD, an integrative physiology professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Norris' team reported in 2006 that native male fish in Boulder Creek decreased in numbers with respect to females and numerous intersex fish were found downstream of the wastewater treatment plant. After a technology upgrade to the wastewater treatment plant in 2008, the reproductive disruption in the fish was far less pronounced. However, Norris said the study results should still concern people.

"The fish are a wake-up call," Norris said. "Our bodies and those of the much more sensitive human fetus are being exposed everyday to a variety of chemicals that are capable of altering not only our development and physiology but that of future generations as well."

Would you ski on Pee? J.A. (Johnny Awesome), snow-ballin' sloper who has stomped it all (or so he thought) asks "Dude, what kinda question is that?"

It's the kind of question concerned citizens in Flagstaff, Arizona are asking regarding a plan approved by the U.S. Forest Service allowing the Snowbowl Ski Resort to spray treated effluent on the San Francisco Peaks to make snow. Former Democratic Congressional Candidate, attorney Howard Shanker, is representing these citizens in the courtroom. They have filed a federal NEPA (the National Environmental Policy Act) lawsuit seeking to halt the plan by the Ski Resort to pump up to one million gallons per day of wastewater up the mountain and clear-cut more than 70 acres of rare alpine habitat on public land leased from the Forest Service.

The quality of the wastewater that would be purchased from the city of Flagstaff to make snow has been questioned by many, including prominent scientists. They contend that the dangers posed by introducing this water into the ecosystem have not been adequately studied, and that the water coming out of our wastewater treatment plants is not adequately regulated.

Dr. Paul Torrence, a renowned expert in the field of bio-organic and medicinal chemistry, has been an outspoken opponent of snowmaking with Flagstaff's treated wastewater from the very beginning. One of his main concerns is the Triclosan found in this water and its link to dioxins, highly carcinogenic chemicals that can cause severe health problems such as weakening of the immune system, decreased fertility, altered sex hormones, birth defects and cancer.

• Press Release
  Analysis of Water Data Reveals Broad Contamination Ignored by EPA Monitoring
  Natural Resources Defense Council, Aug 24, 2009
  Straight to the Source
  

CHICAGO - August 24 - A widely used pesticide known to impact wildlife development and, potentially, human health has contaminated watersheds and drinking water throughout much of the United States, according to a new report released today by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Banned by the European Union, atrazine is the most commonly detected pesticide in U.S. waters and is a known endocrine disruptor, which means that it affects human and animal hormones. It has been tied to poor sperm quality in humans and hermaphroditic amphibians.

TreeHugger has been all over Bisphenol A this week, but there is another gender bender chemical that we have been talking about since John wrote There’s A Frog Disruptor In My Soap three years ago: Triclosan. It is in all kinds of so-called "antibacterial" products, from Right Guard to Total toothpaste. Two years ago we were quoting Scientific American in Antibacterial Cleaners Do More Harm Than Good"

"What is this stuff doing in households when we have soaps?" asks molecular biologist John Gustafson of New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. "These substances really belong in hospitals and clinics, not in the homes of healthy people."

Now the Canadian Medical Association has asked the Federal Government to ban it in consumer products because it may cause bacterial resistance.

Swedish researchers have discovered that oseltamivir (Tamiflu), an antiviral drug used to prevent and mitigate influenza infections, is not removed or degraded during normal sewage treatment.

Consequently, in countries where Tamiflu is used at a high frequency, there is a risk that its concentration in natural waters can reach levels where influenza viruses in nature will develop resistance to it. Widespread resistance of viruses in nature to Tamiflu increases the risk that influenza viruses infecting humans will become resistant to one of the few medicines currently available for treating influenza.

”Antiviral medicines such as Tamiflu must be used with care and only when the medical situation justifies it,” advises Björn Olsen, Professor of Infectious Diseases with the Uppsala University and the University of Kalmar. “Otherwise there is a risk that they will be ineffective when most needed, such as during the next influenza pandemic.”