Pharmaceutical drugs dumped into US water.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090420/ap_on_re_us/pharmawater_factories



Really? They're actually legal in dumping it into our drinking water? I'm not surprised at this since I bet every major company's probably dumping this shit under the table. :roll:
And wtf is that shit the goverment is overlooking it, and on top of that, purposely?? :evil:
I'm alittle aggravated at this, I personally don't drink much water, I'm a soda person. But my mother drinks water, etc. and I don't want any of that shit in her water. :x


Uh-huh, only minute? Wtf's wrong with these people? They have no clear indication of how much shit was dumped in the water over the years. :?

Chemical's that they're dumping include the following:

I took an oceanography course last semester, and we took a little trip to the local water treatment plant. which, hilariously, looks like this



one of my classmates, who was much better informed than i, asked about the drug content in our water, and even our tour guide suggested filtering our water if we were concerned about ingesting "trace" amounts of prescription drugs.

heres an article in my local paper from a while back
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/03/09/ST2008030901877.html

I think disposal of drugs is a big issue. you can either put them on land, or water, and either result won't be favorable. its kind of sad that something as vital as water can be so easily contaminated. water is in everything.

P.S. doesn't your soda have water in in too?

Would incineration be any better? I know the escaped gasses would probably fuck us up, along with the atmosphere in general. I think a sling shot to the sun would be an effective way to get rid of a lot of our waste. In an orgasmic display of fire and vacuum, the garbage could burn before it even hits the sun! Although, that would be a lot of money.

I also think they filter soda water a couple times before they use it, like they do for beer.

Don't hold me to any of this, though >.>

Water is killing your seed.

I don't find it surprising that these things are ending up in our drinking water. It's been happening since your parents were our age. What is really disturbing is the obsession with bottled water which is bottled from the same municipal water sources. Basically, it's the same water you'd get from your tap for a few centers per glass and people would pay $2 for a bottle.

Anyways, think about it for a moment. Who controls our water supply? The government, usually the county government does. So, why is it a surprise when the government does this sort of thing when they control it?

The government isn't dumping things in the water supply, according to the article in the title post. The government is simply not preventing other entities from dumping stuff in the water supply. If deregulation and less government were the answer, then we have what we want. The government lets anyone dump anything they want in the water, and then people are free to choose whether to drink the water, pay extra money for spring water, or whatever. Of course that's a ludicrous scenario.

The government is not engaged in a conspiracy to pollute the water. In fact, they are the only entity capable of preventing anyone dumping anything they want in the water, which is why the government having and enforcing laws about dumping stuff in the water is a good thing. Who else is going to protect the water supplies? Angry mobs? Populist rioters? Private individuals lack any way to oppose these corporations except via the government and lawsuits(which of course require government and laws).

If anything, the way to keep the water less polluted is to have more stringent dumping regulations and penalties which are only capable of being enforced by the government.

In my eyes, government permission for the dumping is nothing different than if they were dumping the toxins themselves.

I somehow feel this was a swipe at my minimalist government/regulation stance which is absurd interpretation of my past words. Nor did I ever accuse the government of some conspiracy to destroy our water. Anyways, I've always promoted better regulation, not more. You can have 100 terrible and generally ineffective laws or you can have 10 laws that do the same job.

So let me be clear on this. The government is not preventing toxins from being dumped into our water supply by companies, so hang the bastards (not literally).

Alright, well I apologize if I misinterpreted your words.



To explain why I came up with what I did, I was responding to the control angle of that statement as well as the fact that I know you generally support less government regulation.



I tend to think that the government itself dumping is worse, since it constitutes an active abuse of power. Letting other companies do it is simply inadequate regulation.



I would also prefer calculate the amount of regulation not by the number of laws on the books, but more the amount of substances regulated, how many agencies/people are involved in the regulation, etc. One really long bill might involve more regulation than the previous 10 bills passed on the subject.



To look at the issue in another way, obviously no one wants polluted water. It's pretty easy to rail against it. But as with any safety regulation, there is some element of cost vs. benefit.

For example, we know that occasionally babies are left in hot cars and die of hyperthermia. Obviously, this is tragic. We could probably prevent some of these deaths by forcing manufacturers to install motion detectors in all cars. But the cost of this is staggering when compared against the number of lives saved. In comparison, with similar amounts of money could be used more effectively to combat lack of vaccination, homelessness, starvation etc.

Obviously, this is a different situation and dumping stuff in the water always sounds bad, but we still have to compare the cost of more regulation and harsher dumping laws with the benefits we get.

Though, the cost of filtering the water and maintaining quality is obvious and really goes without saying. So I won't bother to address that.

What possible benefit is there for allowing drugs to be dumped into water supplies? Money? convenience? I fail to see any possible reason for this blatant irresponsibility on behalf of elected officials. There isn't a cost associated with not adding anything to the water with the exception of fluoride which I personally am a little uneasy about. Even if local government receive some amount of money for this. It only proves that politicians see that our health has a price tag.



Not at the expense of peoples lives. Same logic of removing asbestos from buildings.

I completely agree. Once again, apologies for misinterpreting your words.

I agree with you that the actual government costs of regulating the water aren't that high, but the more concerning cost is that it makes pharmaceutical products cost more because we are forcing the companies to spend more resources disposing of waste. It goes back to the economic theory of externalities. Is the health benefit of not letting these companies dump chemical X in the water greater than the health loss of more people not being able to afford pharmaceutical products? It's not a question of putting a price tag on health persay, but looking at what action more efficiently improves health.

We view universal health care in the same way. Clearly, giving everyone free health care makes those who currently can't currently afford health care healthier, but at what cost? If we all have to give up 10% more of our income is it worth it? Will it promote substandard care? Other problems?

It's not like we can afford it anyways lol j/k. I think a better solution would be to find a way to reduce the overall cost of pharmaceutical production. Which would remove their desire to dump in municipal water supplies.



For me, it's not only about the money. It's about the conflict between the individual and the collective. I'd elaborate on the topic but, I plan to make a thread with that as the topic at a later date.

Well, i did know that USA would self-destruct one way or another, but this is a very serious matter, we are talking of potentially generational side effects.

Well now i know who controls the water supply



Also, i may not be a citizen of the US, but in Australia, similar things are happening in Sydney and now we're not allowed to fish from the river. Why in hell does these muli-billion dollar corporations decide to dump their potentially harzadous materials into our drinking water and expect to get away with it?