Our
Town:
Compton Resident, Carson Car Dealership Help Youth and The Poor, One Car at a
Time
Growing Pains: Eminent Domain Pitting City Against Small Business Owner
Low Enrollment a Challenge at Compton Education Center
Council Approves Multi-million Dollar Bond Issue to Fund Public Projects
City’s Credit Rating Bumped Up a Notch
Dominguez High Football Star, USC Recruit Arrested for Robbery
Earl
Ofari Hutchinson:
Black Voters Alone Won’t Put Obama in the White House
Compton Water Officials Say Tap Water’s OK
By
Allison Jean Eaton
Bulletin Staff Writer
COMPTON — Residents
have nothing to worry about when it comes to possible drinking water
contamination, city water officials said.
An Associated Press investigation earlier this month revealed that
the drinking water of at least 41 million Americans living in 24 major
metropolitan areas — including Southern California — contains
trace amounts of dozens of pharmaceuticals.
Water tested in both Long Beach and Los Angeles contained trace amounts
of nine unspecified drugs, according to a survey of 62 major water
providers.
But Compton Municipal Water Department Director Kambiz Shoghi said
the amounts of the variety of prescription drugs — from antibiotics
and anti-convulsants to mood stabilizers and sex hormones like birth
control — are so miniscule that someone would have to drink more
water than is humanly possible to suffer adverse effects.
“The amount in the water is so low that in order for your body
to be affected by it and make you sick, you’d have to drink a
tremendous amount of water,” he said.
Someone would have to drink 300 million liters of water, equivalent
to 120 Olympic-sized swimming pools, in order to register even 16 hundredths
of a milligram of a trace compound in his or her body, Shoghi said.
He added that these trace amounts of water contaminants are nothing
new. They have likely been in the water for decades, but newer technology
has only recently been able to detect their concentration levels.
“These compounds have probably been in the water since 1950,” Shoghi
said.
But how did they get there?
Much of it has to do with what you flush down the toilet. The trace
amounts are mostly residue of medications taken by people who then
excrete them and flush.
When that wastewater is treated and purified into non-potable recycled
water, it is both sold for non-drinking purposes and reintegrated into
the natural water supply, usually via filtration into the groundwater
table or addition to streams and rivers, which are primary sources
of drinking water.
Although officials across the nation have rushed to assure water supplies
are safe, a growing body of research indicates the trace contaminants
could prove harmful to humans in the long run.
Fish and wildlife populations that live in or near streams and rivers
are already showing signs of harm.
Scientists link pharmaceuticals in the water to severe reproductive
problems in many types of fish: The endangered razorback sucker and
male fathead minnow have been found with lower sperm counts and damaged
sperm, while some walleyes and male carp have become what are called
feminized fish, producing egg yolk proteins typically made only by
females.
Meanwhile, female fish have developed male genital organs. Also, there
are skewed sex ratios in some aquatic populations, and sexually abnormal
bass that produce cells for both sperm and eggs.
There are problems with other wildlife as well: kidney failure in vultures,
impaired reproduction in mussels, inhibited growth in algae.
But Shoghi said Compton residents who purchase their water through
the city’s municipal water department have even less to worry
about.
Compton only purchases about 40 — 50 percent of its water from
the Metropolitan Water District (MWD). The rest it extracts from its
own underground water table, and that water is some of the safest in
the Southland, Shoghi said.
MWD two years ago participated in a national study and sent samples
of its water, which is derived from the Colorado River, to be tested
for trace contaminants, according to Mic Stewart, an MWD water quality
manager. The samples contained scant amount of the pharmaceutical compound
Mep-robamate, an anti-anxiety medication.
“We blend that water (purchased from MWD) with our own water,
so our levels (of trace contaminants) are even less,” Shoghi
said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
ADVERTISE | CLASSIFIEDS | ABOUT US | CONTACT US | SUBSCRIBE | HOME
This site and its contents ©2008 thecomptonbulletin.com