Freshwater Society

Unused drugs - both prescription and non-prescription - are a major source of water pollution.

Many drugs contain endocrine-disrupting compounds that can interfere with the hormonal systems that regulate the bodily functions of fish and other animals, including humans.

Photo: MPCA

At one time, the standard advice on disposing of medications was: Flush them down the toilet or pour them into a drain. That almost never is the correct means of disposal now.

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency recommends you dispose of unneeded drugs this way:

• Keep medications in their original containers. Leave the content information and safety warning intact; scratch out patient identification information.

• For pills and capsules, add water to partially dissolve them.

• For liquids, add table salt, flour, charcoal or another substance that will discourage consumption.

• For blister packs, wrap them in opaque tape - such as duct tape - to hide their contents.

• Tape the medicine container shut and put it inside another container such as a yogurt or magarine tub.

• Discard the container with your garbage; don't recycle it.

For more information from the MPCA, click here.

For a very few, very powerful drugs that could be fatal in a single dose, the federal Food and Drug Administration still recommends flushing them down a toilet or pouring them in a drain. For information on those drugs, click here.

Is Minnesota making progress toward cleaning up the 40 percent of its rivers and lakes that suffer from some type of pollution that makes then unfit for swimming or fishing or inhospitable to the aquatic species that live in them?

Are the Legislature and state agencies on the right track toward spending the estimated $3.25 billion that a sales tax increase last year will yield over 25 years for protecting and restoring water?

About 100 people gathered Tuesday, Oct. 20, at a forum to ask, and try to answer, those questions.

The forum was sponsored by the Minnesota Environmental Initiative and hosted by the Freshwater Society at the Gray Freshwater Center in Excelsior. To view participants' presentations, click here.

A major Minnesota research project - paid for by the sales tax increase voters approved last year, and conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey and St. Cloud State University - is investigating one of the newest, least understood and most troubling types of water pollution: Endocrine disrupting compounds.

The $896,000 project is sampling water at 22 sewage treatment plants around the state.

A number of studies have shown the compounds "feminize" male fish. Some scientists suspect they also cause human ills such as decreased sperm counts, increased genital and urinary birth defects in boys and increases in obesity, diabetes and testicular cancer.

Follow these links to see a summary of other research on EDCs in Minnesota over the last 15 years and to read an interview with a Minnesota Health Department expert on the compounds and human health. Those articles, and others, appear in the September issue of Facets of Freshwater, the Freshwater Society's quarterly newsletter.

Those other articles include:

• Calendars in the Classroom. About 400 teachers throughout Minnesota are using the Minnesota Environment Weatherguide Calendar to teach science and other subjects to their kindergarten-fifth-grade students. The free curriculum was developed by the Jeffers Foundation in collaboration with the Freshwater Society.
• Gene Merriam. Freshwater Society President Gene Merriam writes about his hopes and concerns about water quality and the 25-year stream of revenue created by passage of a constitutional amendment last year.
• Passwords. Dick Gray, the principal founder of the Freshwater Society, recalls the weather almanac that evolved into the Minnesota Weatherguide Environment Calendar.
• Itasca. The University of Minnesota's Itasca Biological Field Station and Laboratory celebrates its 100th birthday.

In a world with a constantly growing population and an increasing threat of pollution from tens of thousands of chemical compounds, clean water will someday be as valuable as oil, Michael Osterholm predicted in a forum on groundwater sustainability and quality.

Osterholm, an international expert on infectious diseases, was the featured speaker Thursday, Oct. 8, in a forum co-sponsored by the Freshwater Society and three League of Women Voters chapters. To view the presentation, click here to see a video taped by the Lake Minnetonka Cable Commission, Channel 21.