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NEWS / ENVIRONMENT

Prescription drugs are contaminating

Florida’s marine life, researchers find
A recent Florida International University study identified
58 different drugs in bonefish from South Florida’s
coastal waters. A single fish had 16 drugs in its system.

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Scientists at Florida International University’s Coastal Fisheries Research Lab found 58 different pharmaceuticals in 93 bonefish like this one. [ FLORIDA
INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY’S COASTAL FISHERIES RESEARCH LAB | SPECIAL ]

By Aman Azhar

Published Feb. 28
Updated Mar. 2

Fish and marine life off South Florida’s coast are ingesting high amounts of
pharmaceuticals flushed down the drain or excreted in wastewater, because
outdated treatment facilities are unable to detect and filter out the contaminants.
 
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Results from a study by researchers at Florida International University’s Coastal

Fisheries Research Lab have identified 58 different pharmaceuticals in 93
bonefish, sampled along a 200-mile stretch of South Florida’s coastline over a
three-year period. In one case, the researchers found 16 different drugs in a single
fish.

The study has not yet been published, but Dr. Jennifer Rehage, lead researcher for
the study and associate professor at the Institute of Water and Environment at
Florida International University in Miami, said she and her co-authors planned to
submit it to a peer-reviewed journal.

She said they decided to share the research findings before publication because the
bipartisan infrastructure bill passed by Congress in 2021 offered an opportunity to
bring attention to key areas for investment, like the flaws in water treatment and
regulation that allow pharmaceutical contamination.

Congress approved President Joe Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill in

November 2021. It provides more than $500 billion in federal funding for
improving roads, bridges, water and energy systems over five years. Most of these
investments will go to the states, which will determine which sectors would
benefit.

Dr. Duane De Freeze, a marine biologist and executive director of Indian River
Lagoon National Estuary Program, called the study an original contribution to
existing research because it looked at the presence of contaminants in bonefish, an
“incredibly important recreational sport fish with very high economic value.”

“When you look at the research over the last couple of decades,” he said, “whether
it’s on Atlantic bottlenose dolphin, manatees and other species in Florida, what it’s
building is a really strong case that we have toxicants and other emerging
contaminants of concern that are getting through our wastewater systems,” Freeze
said.

He said previous studies in Florida have documented human antibiotics and some
endocrine disruptors in wildlife.

“So, it is not surprising that we would see some of these chemicals in the tissue or
the organs of marine organisms,” he said.

Unregulated contaminants

In Florida, Rehage said, one-third of households have septic tanks and two-thirds
have sewer lines, and “conventional wastewater treatment in Florida and other
parts of the United States does not remove pharmaceuticals.”
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“It’s in our drinking water. We also have it in our fish that we consume,” Rehage
said, adding, “The risk is very small because concentrations are very small. But no
one knows what it means for us to be exposed over our lifetimes to so many
pharmaceuticals.”

Rehage noted that there are no regulations governing the production or disposal of
pharmaceuticals. “So, they’re not considered a contaminant.”

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Alexandra Kuchta, a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Environmental

Protection, said that the department worked jointly with state health, agriculture
and wildlife conservation officials “to determine if environmental chemicals are
present in fish from Florida waters.”

Kuchta called pharmaceutical contaminants “an emerging issue,” and said that the
environmental protection department “looks forward to working with
stakeholders as new science becomes available.”

In the new study, blood tests and tissue analysis were used to screen the fish. The
prescription pharmaceuticals detected included antidepressants, antibiotics, heart
medications, blood pressure medications and pain relievers. The same
contaminants were also found in crab, shrimp and other small sea animals that the
bonefish feed on, as well as in water and sediment.

The study began in 2018 and was conducted by a team of Florida International
The study began in 2018 and was conducted by a team of Florida International
University scientists in partnership with Sweden’s Umeå University and the SUBSCRIBE Log in

University of Agricultural Sciences. The researchers recorded an average of seven

pharmaceuticals per fish analyzed in South Florida waters, and the contaminants
were detected both in fish taken from water near urban centers and from remote
locations.

Contaminants were also found in 43 bonefish tested in waters near the Caribbean,
Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Mexico and Belize.

The researchers found the highest number of contaminants in one fish taken from
Biscayne Bay. The pharmaceuticals detected in the fish included eight different
antidepressants, at concentrations equal to as much as 300 times the amount
prescribed for humans. The study also found concentrations of Parkinson’s drugs,
antifungal drugs, stomach medications and opiates in the fish.

[ Paul Alexander ]

“The levels in bonefish blood and tissue were high enough to have biological
effects,” the researchers wrote, in a summary of their findings. A Miami-based
nonprofit, the Bonefish & Tarpon Trust, funded the research. The study is the
latest in a growing body of research over the last three decades that has
documented the presence of pharmaceuticals, steroid hormones, and personal
care products in Florida’s coastal waters.

Aaron Adam, director of science and conservation at the bonefish trust, called the
study’s methodology rigorous and said the findings support the conclusions of
i h
previous research.
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Sources of contamination

One earlier study, published in February 2021, found that heavily populated areas
of South Florida that were not served by municipal wastewater collection could
end up with contaminants reaching coastal waters and wetlands through runoff or
groundwater flow.

South Florida is host to a diverse range of protected ecosystems, including

wetlands and coral reefs situated close to large metropolitan cities.

“Global pharmaceutical production is skyrocketing, compared to other things we

care about such as human population growth, or CO2 emissions,” Rehage said.
She said the contaminants come in large part from the prescription drugs people
ingest and excrete, with effluent traveling through a septic system or sewer line to
the ocean or other bodies of water.

These waterborne chemicals pose a significant threat to the flats fishery, an

important component of Florida’s recreational saltwater fishery, which generates
more than $9 billion annually and supports nearly 90,000 jobs, Adam said.

He said that most of the chemical contamination seems to come from people
taking prescription medications. “Only a portion of the drugs that people take are
absorbed by the body. We excrete the rest that gets sent to the wastewater
treatment system,” Adam said, adding that to his knowledge, there were no
regulations governing the disposal of pharmaceuticals in wastewater.

He said there was also a concern that pharmaceuticals — as well as nutrients in

runoff from stormwater, agricultural lands or treatment plants — were entering
the aquifer, the main source of drinking water for much of the state.

The chemicals enter the groundwater and coastal waters through various sources
of wastewater discharge. Nutrients in the water can feed toxic algae blooms or Red
Tide, a type of harmful algal bloom. The blooms are caused by high concentrations
of a plant-like microscopic organism known as Karenia brevis, which feeds on the
nutrients.

A recent report by the state’s task force on harmful algae blooms estimated “total
losses of nearly $1 billion in revenue and an additional loss of $178 million in tax
revenue in 23 Gulf coast counties” as a result of a prolonged Red Tide that lasted
from 2017 to 2019.

Contamination of fish comes from the same wastewater discharge sources as the
nutrients.

“We need immediate improvement in infrastructure that we and others are

We need immediate improvement in infrastructure that we and others are
pushing for, not only to remove more nutrients, but also removing these SUBSCRIBE Log in

pharmaceutical contaminants,” Adam said.

Targeting the problem

In his early days in office, Gov. Ron DeSantis said he would prioritize Florida’s
environment and water quality improvement by funding programs and enabling
legislation. His tenure has seen the passage of the 2020 Clean Waterways Act and
the establishment of a wastewater grant program.

Christina Pushaw, the governor’s spokesperson, said the governor’s environment-

related budget recommendations for next fiscal year include $195 million for
targeted water quality improvements.

“Most of this funding will support critical infrastructure and projects to provide
advanced wastewater treatment and to upgrade wastewater facilities,” Pushaw
said. “These investments are crucial to achieve impactful nutrient reduction goals
in key water bodies across the state.”

But advocates say that the state’s measures so far have stopped short of requiring
private housing developers to invest in better treatment facilities or implementing
better regulatory safeguards.

The presence of pharmaceuticals and other chemicals in Florida’s coastal waters

compounds the adverse impact on the ecosystem of the excess nutrients that feed
the harmful algal blooms. According to the Environmental Protection Agency,
there is also strong evidence that exposure to a variety of synthetic chemicals
known as endocrine disruptors adversely affects the reproductive behavior of fish
and other marine animals.

Endocrine disruptors can have an impact on humans and wildlife — including

reproduction, development and immune systems, according to the National
Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. A wide variety of substances,
including pharmaceuticals and pesticides, can cause endocrine disruption.

Studies have found that pharmaceuticals that contain or mimic hormones, like
birth control pills, have caused male fish to develop ovaries.

Anti-anxiety drugs like Valium can cause fish to become more active, less social
and to take more risks, according to the bonefish contamination study, making
them more likely to be eaten by predators. The overall effect, the Florida
International researchers said, is lower survival rates for the fish.

The effects of the pharmaceuticals in the water on fish are likely permanent,
because changes in brain chemistry follow exposure, the researchers said. “This is
similar to how opioids, like Oxy, affect humans who get addicted to them,” they
similar to how opioids, like Oxy, affect humans who get addicted to them, they
wrote in their report of the research. So if pharmaceuticals make a fish more SUBSCRIBE Log in

skittish, the fish will always be skittish, even if the pharmaceuticals are removed,
the researchers said in reporting the research.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an analysis of

prescription rates from 2015 to 2016 found that in any 30-day period, 45.8 percent
of the American population had been prescribed a drug. The most commonly
prescribed drugs for 12 to 19-year-olds were central nervous system stimulants.
For 20 to 59-year-olds, antidepressants were most commonly prescribed.

Despite the fact that so many Americans have for decades consumed
pharmaceuticals or flushed the drugs down the drain, there are no regulatory
controls in place to check their discharge into the environment or to monitor the
risk they may pose to ecosystems and human populations.

In January 2010, the Florida-based Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the
EPA to establish water quality criteria under the Clean Water Act for endocrine
disrupting chemicals.

The center argued that the science indicated that endocrine disrupting chemicals
persisted in bodies of water throughout the nation, brought in largely through
runoff and treated wastewater discharges. The chemicals, the biological diversity
center said, affect “the biological, chemical, and physical integrity of our water,
and are having profound effects on the flora and fauna that rely on them.”

In its September 2011 response to the petition, the EPA denied the request to
establish or revise the water quality criteria provided by the Clean Water Act.

Jaclyn Lopez, Florida director of the biological diversity center, said the
pharmaceuticals are getting into the water “because we are directly discharging
our treated wastewater into our surface waters, where we then expect to have
fishable, swimmable waters, and in some cases, drinkable waters.” She said that
until the EPA establishes water quality criteria for endocrine disrupting chemicals,
those activities will remain unregulated.

Calling it an unfortunate situation, Glenn Compton, chairperson of the

environmental nonprofit Manasota-88, said the problem of pharmaceutical
contamination has been known for about 30 years but that “little to nothing has
been done to address the monitoring of pharmaceuticals in our wastewater supply.
And that certainly needs to change.”

“I don’t see things getting better in the near future,” Compton said. “We need
changes at the state level, with policymakers that truly understand the importance
of the water quality in the state of Florida and the necessary things that need to be
done.
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Aman Azhar reported this story for Inside Climate News, a Pulitzer-Prize
winning nonprofit news organization focused on climate change, energy and the
environment.

UP NEXT: 4 ways Florida’s climate change struggle informs new U.N. report

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