- BALTIMORE -- An anti-bacterial
agent commonly found in soaps and detergents has been found in water from
streams and wastewater treatment plants in the Baltimore area, a Johns
Hopkins researcher said Wednesday.
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- The chemical, triclocarban, was not found in well water
or municipal drinking water, but was found in samples from six streams
as well as wastewater treatment plants in the Baltimore area.
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- "We put out almost a million pounds of this every
year, and nobody ever bothered to take a look what happens to the stuff
once we are done with it," said study author Rolf U. Halden, assistant
professor of the School's Department of Environmental Health Sciences and
founding member of its Center for Water and Health.
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- "We pick up a bar of soap, the material gets washed
down, goes to the wastewater treatment plant, and a lot of it ends up in
our surface water."
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- Triclocarban is not one of the chemicals whose presence
in drinking water is monitored or regulated by the federal Environmental
Protection Agency, but it is being reviewed by the EPA, Halden said.
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- The chemical was found in surface water at levels up
to 20 times higher than those reported to the EPA by the chemical industry,
said Halden, who added that his group now plans a wider study of the chemical
in surface waters nationwide. Results of the study have been published
in the online edition of Environmental Science & Technology.
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- The researcher said his group had to develop a new test
to detect the chemical because conventional monitoring techniques cannot
detect it.
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- "Now the big question is what are the ecological
and human health consequences of triclocarban in the environment? From
the chemical structure, one would expect the compound to concentrate in
fish and bio-accumulate in the food chain, but at this point we can only
speculate," Halden said.
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- A Web site posted by Frederick Senese, an associate professor
of chemistry at Frostburg State University who was not involved in the
study, says triclocarban kills bacteria by blocking an enzyme that many
bacteria and funguses need for survival.
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- The highly specific way that triclosan kills also has
researchers concerned about its role in fostering antibiotic-resistant
strains of bacteria, the Web site says.
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- Halden said the researchers tested water entering and
leaving the city's three water treatment plants as well as samples from
the Jones Falls, Gwynn's Falls, Gwynn's Run, Maiden's Choice Run, Western
Run and Stony Run.
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- Halden said it is "somewhat unsettling that we've
been using this persistent disinfectant for almost half a century at rates
approaching 1 million pounds per year and still have essentially no idea
of what exactly happens to the compound after we flush it down the drain."
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