Source: Nature.com

Environmental protections must not wait until a population is about to disappear.

Where there are serious threats to the environment, governments should not postpone cost-effective preventative measures because the scientific evidence is inconclusive. So says the precautionary principle, an idea enshrined in several international treaties, including the declaration signed in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Many scientists think that this principle should have long ago triggered action to curb the damage to aquatic wildlife caused by the synthetic hormone ethynyl oestradiol (EE2), an ingredient of birth-control pills that passes through wastewater treatment plants and into streams and lakes (see page 503). In 2004, for example, the UK Environment Agency declared that the hormone feminizes male fish and is likely to damage entire fish populations. It later concluded that this damage is unacceptable in the long term.

Eight years on, the evidence against EE2 continues to mount, but the European Commission is only now proposing the first serious effort to tackle the problem, suggesting tight limits on the hormone’s concentration in the environment. The legislation would set a global precedent. But its prospects look bleak, mainly because of concerns about how best to limit the escape of EE2 into the aquatic environment, what that would cost and who should pay.
Continue reading Water wars

Source: Nature.com

EU initiative to clean up waterways faces tough opposition.

Europe is set to quash a precedent-setting initiative designed to tackle a disturbing side effect of common drugs — their impact on aquatic life. Nature has learned that landmark regulations intended to clean Europe’s waterways of pharmaceuticals are likely to be dead on arrival when they reach a key vote in the European Parliament next week.

The proposal by the European Commission, which would limit the concentrations in water of a widely used contraceptive and an anti-inflammatory drug, have sparked intense lobbying by the water and pharmaceutical industries, which say that the science is uncertain and the costs too high. European Union (EU) member states, alarmed by cost estimates of tens of billions of euros, seem to agree. Researchers and environmentalists question those estimates, and argue that the proposal should be judged principally on what they say is strong scientific evidence, rather than on financial concerns.

Many of Europe’s rivers are home to male fish that are ‘intersex’ and so display female sexual characteristics, including female reproductive anatomy. Some males also produce vitellogenin, a protein normally found in eggs that can be induced in males by hormone exposure1, 2. In one of the largest studies of the problem, the UK government’s Environment Agency found in 2004 that 86% of male fish sampled at 51 sites around the country were intersex.
Continue reading Drug-pollution law all washed up

Source: Environmental Defense Fund Blog

By Alissa Sasso: a Chemicals Policy Fellow.

This week, the American Sustainable Business Council released the results of a bipartisan national survey of 511 small business owners conducted by Lake Research Partners and Public Opinion Strategies. The survey showed that small business owners, just like voters, support stronger chemical safety regulations to mitigate the risks posed to human health and the environment by toxic chemicals.

Small business owners are an important part of the discussion on TSCA reform; the chemical industry frequently uses this group as an excuse to oppose tighter regulations, claiming that these regulations are “bad for business” and would detrimentally harm small business owners. In contrast, the survey shows that there is broad consensus among small business owners on the need to ensure the safety of their products and their customers.

Especially encouraging is that 73% of small business owners are in favor of TSCA reform similar to that provided in the Safe Chemicals Act of 2011: chemical manufacturers would be required to prove a chemical is safe in order to use it; EPA would have the ability to limit or ban uses of a dangerous chemical; and incentives would be provided to support for innovation towards safer chemicals. On top of this, specific aspects of the Act’s reforms garnered support as high as 90% of those surveyed, results which held across party affiliations.
Continue reading Small is beautiful: Polling shows huge bipartisan support for TSCA reform among small business owners

Source: Environmental Leader.com

Bard College has replaced its flushing urinals with Falcon Waterfree Technologies urinals, which will save more than 500,000 gallons of water a year, according to the waterfree urinals maker.

These water savings, the school says, will increase Bard’s Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS) score, which measures how environmentally friendly a college or university campus is. Bard has also made upgrades to its water treatment plant, according to the college’s sustainability manager, Laurie Husted.

The maintenance staff says the waterfree urinals are easier to clean than flush urinals, and cartridge changes are not needed as frequently as first thought. The urinals are odorless, they say.

In addition to offering academic programs in sustainability, Bard College is also implementing sustainable practices on campus including reducing deliveries of bottled water, recycling waste, operating a free campus shuttle and participating in a Zipcar car sharing service. Bard says since 2005, it has reduced waste by 30 percent, compared to a 2005 baseline.

Other Falcon urinal clients include Adobe Systems headquarters, Bank of America’s One Bryant Park in New York, Coke and the US Green Building Council headquarters.

Facebook’s Prineville, Ore., data center achieved a water usage effectiveness rating of 0.22 liters per kWh for the 12 months to the second quarter of 2012 through several water-saving efforts including waterless urinals, the social networking giant announced in August.

In 2011, utility company Sempra Energy reduced its water withdrawal by just under 17 percent compared to 2011, in part by installing low- and no-flow urinals, according to the company’s sustainability report.

Kohler introduced 40 new water-efficient toilet models to the North American market in 2011, earning it a 2012 EPA Water Sense award. According to EPA, the company’s stock of lavatory faucets and urinal fixtures is made up of nearly 100 percent WaterSense-labeled models.

Also in 2011, Kohler partnered with Habitat for Humanity to install WaterSense labeled toilets, faucets, and showerheads in 550 Habitat homes in California and Texas.

Source: Environmental Protection Online

A team of researchers led at the University of Maryland School of Public Health has found that the superbug MRSA is prevalent in several wastewater treatment plants across the U.S.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is well known for causing difficult-to-treat and potentially fatal bacterial infections in hospital patients, but since the late 1990s it has also been infecting otherwise healthy people in community settings. Infected people can shed MRSA from their noses and skin and through their feces, so wastewater treatment plants are a likely reservoir for the bacteria. Swedish researchers have previously identified the presence of MRSA in wastewater treatment plants in Sweden, and this new UMD-led study confirms the presence of MRSA in U.S. facilities.

The research team, including University of Maryland School of Public Health and University of Nebraska Medical Center researchers, collected wastewater samples throughout the treatment process at two Mid-Atlantic and two Midwestern wastewater treatment plants. These plants were chosen because treated effluent discharged from these plants is reused as “reclaimed wastewater” in spray irrigation activities. The researchers were interested in whether MRSA remained in the effluent.

They found that MRSA, as well as a related pathogen, methicillin-susceptible Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA), were present at all four wastewater treatment plants, with MRSA in half of all samples and MSSA in 55 percent. MRSA was present in 83 percent of the influent, but the percentage of MRSA and MSSA-positive samples decreased as treatment progressed. Only one wastewater treatment plant had the bacteria in the treated water leaving the plant, and this was at a plant that does not regularly use chlorination, a tertiary step in wastewater treatment.

93 percent of the MRSA strains that were isolated from the wastewater and 29 percent of MSSA strains were resistant to two or more classes of antibiotics, including several that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has specifically approved for treating MRSA infections. At two wastewater treatment plants, MRSA strains showed resistance to more antibiotics and greater prevalence of a gene associated with virulence at subsequent treatment stages, until tertiary chlorination treatment appeared to eliminate all MRSA. This suggests that while wastewater treatment plants effectively reduce MRSA and MSSA from influent to effluent, they may select for increased antibiotic resistance and virulence, particularly at those facilities that do not employ tertiary/chlorination treatment.

“Our finding raise potential public health concerns for wastewater treatment plant workers and individuals exposed to reclaimed wastewater, “says Rachel Rosenberg Goldstein, environmental health doctoral student in the School of Public Health and the study’s first author. “Because of increasing use of reclaimed wastewater, further research is needed to evaluate the risk of exposure to antibiotic-resistant bacteria in treated wastewater.”