Poisoned streams

Vegetarian Times, April, 2005

Detergents, prescription drugs, insect sprays and other household products are ending up in remote streams in the Colorado mountains, the US Geological Survey (USGS) disclosed in January 2005. Some of the 62 chemicals found in the once-pristine waterways cause reproductive problems in fish and may also lower their resistance to bacteria.

The findings, from samples taken between October 2002 and September 2003, surprised officials, who expected to find such residues in urban waterways but not in the mountains. "We found chemicals from prescription and nonprescription drugs, including from nicotine patches, for example," Lorie A. Sprague, a water scientist with the USGS office in Lakewood, CO, and the report's co-author, tells V77. "Other chemicals--from mouthwashes, detergents and hand soaps, for example--come from camps, septic systems of homes and from people who use these waterways recreationally. So there doesn't need to be an industrial plant to pollute a mountain stream."