It may be time to sit down with your salmon and have a talk about drug abuse.
Researchers found
cocaine, Advil, Prozac, Lipitor, Benadryl and dozens of other drugs in
the tissue of juvenile chinook salmon caught in the Puget Sound in
September 2014, the Seattle Times reported
in February. The salmon likely picked up the drugs from wastewater in
the area that's a "[cocktail] of 81 drugs," as the Seattle Times put it.
Other drugs found in
the wastewater include (but aren't limited to): Aleve, Flonase, Paxil,
Tylenol, Tagamet, Valium, Zoloft, Darvon, OxyContin, caffeine, nicotine
fungicides, antiseptics, anticoagulants, Cipro and other "antibiotics
galore," the Seattle Times reported.
Sounds like one hell of a ride for the salmon.
"The
concentrations in effluent [sewage water] were higher than we expected,"
Jim Meador, an environmental toxicologist at the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration and a lead author of the study of the contaminants found in the Puget, told the Seattle Times.
"We analyzed samples for 150 compounds and we had 61% of them detected
in effluent. So we know these are going into the estuaries."
The drugs found likely won't affect human health, Meador said, because most people don't eat juvenile chinook salmon or sculpin, another fish in the Sound that tested positive for drugs.
There are 106 wastewater treatment plants in the Puget Sound that empty to local water, the Seattle Times
reported. While the treatment plant system is "doing its best" to
decontaminate the water, Betsy Cooper, permit administrator for King
County's Wastewater Treatment Division, told the Seattle Times "not
everything goes away." Ongoing research being conducted at the
facilities will hopefully help the team understand how to rid the water
of these chemicals.
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