Pharmaceuticals and personal care products found in the Great Lakes above concentrations of environmental concern

Abstract

The monitoring of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) has focused on the distribution in rivers and small lakes, but data regarding their occurrence and effects in large lake systems, such as the Great Lakes, are sparse. Wastewater treatment processes have not been optimized to remove influent PPCPs and are a major source of PPCPs in the environment. Furthermore, PPCPs are not currently regulated in wastewater effluent. In this experiment we evaluated the concentration, and corresponding risk, of PPCPs from a wastewater effluent source at varying distances in Lake Michigan. Fifty-four PPCPs and hormones were assessed on six different dates over a two-year period from surface water and sediment samples up to 3.2 km from a wastewater treatment plant and at two sites within a harbor. Thirty-two PPCPs were detected in Lake Michigan and 30 were detected in the sediment, with numerous PPCPs being detected up to 3.2 km away from the shoreline. The most frequently detected PPCPs in Lake Michigan were metformin, caffeine, sulfamethoxazole, and triclosan. To determine the ecological risk, the maximum measured environmental concentrations were compared to the predicted no-effect concentration and 14 PPCPs were found to be of medium or high ecological risk. The environmental risk of PPCPs in large lake systems, such as the Great Lakes, has been questioned due to high dilution; however, the concentrations found in this study, and their corresponding risk quotient, indicate a significant threat by PPCPs to the health of the Great Lakes, particularly near shore organisms.

Occurrence and ecological potential of pharmaceuticals and personal care products in groundwater and reservoirs in the vicinity of municipal landfills in China

“…Diclofenac and indomethacin were also widely detected with median concentrations of 32.5 and 15.5 ng L −1 , respectively. These detected pharmaceutical concentrations were higher than those reported for lakes in Switzerland, Sweden, and the USA (Blair et al, 2013;Daneshvar et al, 2010).…”

“…7). The ecological risk of the investigated anti-bacterials in the groundwater and reservoirs were higher than the risk estimated in Bohai Sea (Zhang et al, 2013) and comparable to observations from Lake Michigan (Blair et al, 2013). However, limited toxicity information about the PPCPs increased uncertainty in this assessment.…”

“…For example, Huerta et al (2013) reported the wide presence of erythromycin and sulfamethoxazole and found that the macrolides were correlated with the presence of anti-resistance genes and, consequently, the composition of bacterial communities in two reservoirs in Spain. Similarly, in Lake Michigan, USA, sulfamethoxazole was among the most frequently detected PPCPs, while the other antibiotics were only either occasionally detected or not quantifiable (Blair et al, 2013).…”

“…2d). Triclosan was also one of the most frequently detected PPCPs in Lake Michigan, USA (Blair et al, 2013).…”

Occurrence and risk assessment of parabens and triclosan in surface waters of southern Brazil: a problem of emerging compounds in an emerging country

“…The analysis of extracted compounds are carried out by chromatographic techniques, such as liquid chromatography (the most commonly used technique) (BENIJTS; LAMBERT;LEENHEER, 2004;BLAIR et al, 2013;KOSMA;LAMBROPOULOU;ALBANIS, 2014) or gas chromatography (LEE; PEART; SVOBODA, 2005;RAMASWAMY et al, 2011;ALBERO et al, 2012b;AZZOUZ;RASCÓN;BALLESTEROS, 2016).…”