Group Aims to Keep Drugs out of Water Supply

The police departments in the five towns of eastern Suffolk County will have their headquarters outfitted with lock boxes for unwanted pharmaceuticals under an initiative by Group for the East End to prevent prescription and over-the-counter drugs from entering Long Island's water supply.

Group for the East End announced Tuesday that it has received a $45,000 grant through Suffolk County's 1/4 percent sales tax Drinking Water Protection Program. The matching grant will aid the group in implementing the Pharmaceutical Disposal and Aquifer Protection Initiative, which aims to make it safe and easy for residents to anonymously and properly dispose of pharmaceuticals.

Group for the East End environmental advocate Jeremy Samuelson explained Wednesday that when pharmaceuticals are flushed or tossed out with the regular trash, their chemicals eventually leach into the groundwater, which is the source of tap water on Long Island.

The Suffolk County Water Authority is, "unfortunately, starting to see this stuff showing up in their test wells in the west of Suffolk County," Samuelson said, adding that the federal Environmental Protection Agency is tracking the problem all over the country and having similar findings.

Karen A. Randazzo, the director of water quality and laboratory services for the SCWA, said, “We’re pleased that this important issue is getting the attention it deserves, as a direct result of the increased focus is getting people to properly dispose of pharmaceuticals, but to be clear, to date we’ve discovered trace amounts of three pharmaceuticals in a very small percentage of our 603 wells.

"That said, we all need to be cognizant of the potential threat of these contaminants to our aquifer system, and SCWA will continue to expand testing for pharmaceuticals, which we currently do voluntarily,” Randazzo continued.

Ground water that does not become tap water ends up in bays and estuaries, where, in some regions, amphibians and fish have been shown to be affected, Samuelson said. "Most frequently what this means is you have significantly more females in a population than males," he explained. "Whole systems get out of alignment. Eventually, populations collapse. That's the canary in the coalmine."

All different classes of medication are showing up, from heart medication and estrogen to birth control and antibiotics, Samuelson said.

"It's important to remember here there's two ways this stuff enters the aquifer," he said. "One is our bodies don't take up all this material, so some of it is passed through, and that ends up in our septic systems ... There is no way to overcome that reality, unless people are prepared to stop taking medications."

The alternative, Samuelson said, is to take "tons of unused and unwanted medication, and get people to stop doing what they were encouraged to do for decades, which is to flush it down the toilet or put it in a landfill."

After they are deposited in drop boxes, the pharmaceuticals will be taken to the Suffolk County police, who will have the drugs incinerated, Samuelson said.

While Southampton, East Hampton, Southold and Riverhead town police departments will have lock boxes in their lobbies, Shelter Island police headquarters does not staff its lobby 24/7, and cannot have a lock box, Samuelson said, explaining that it is mandated under the state law that a lock box be monitored 24/7. But, when personnel are present in the lobby, Shelter Island Police Department will accept drop-offs and lock them up elsewhere, he said.

in Southampton Village has held several to accept and dispose of drugs, which Samuelson praised. But he noted that for a pharmacy to take back certain narcotics — even ones it sold itself — a police officer must be present. While police departments are generally happy to provide an officer a few times a year, some individuals may not want to wait months between "Take Back" days to get rid of drugs in their home, because they are facing addiction, he said.

Purchasing, shipping and installing the boxes costs a little more than $4,000, while the rest of the grant money is being spent toward outreach and education, including a mailing to East End households, Samuelson said. Once the program is started up, the cost of maintaining it will drop dramatically, he added.

Keeping pharmaceuticals out of the drinking water supply in the first place is certainly the cheapest way to handle the issue, according to Samuelson. He said water delivery technology cannot remove these types of materials. "It would be prohibitively expensive to do so."