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45–022 PDF 2008

EMERGING CONTAMINANTS IN U.S. 

WATERS 

(110–171) 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

WATER RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

TRANSPORTATION AND 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

( 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE 

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota, Chairman 

NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia, Vice 

Chair 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida 

BOB FILNER, California 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California 

LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa 

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania 

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

NICK LAMPSON, Texas 

ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

HEATH SHULER, North Carolina 

MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York 

HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona 

CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania 

JOHN J. HALL, New York 

STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland 

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

JERRY MORAN, Kansas 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina 

HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina 

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania 

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida 

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania 

TED POE, Texas 

DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JOHN R. ‘RANDY’ KUHL, JR., New York 

LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia 

CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

THELMA D. DRAKE, Virginia 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma 

VERN BUCHANAN, Florida 

ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio 

(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON WATER RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas, Chairwoman 

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi 

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington 

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois 

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

HEATH SHULER, North Carolina 

HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizaon 

JOHN J. HALL, New York 

STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California, Vice Chair 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

BOB FILNER, California 

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota 

(Ex Officio) 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland 

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina 

HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JOHN R. ‘RANDY’ KUHL, JR., New York 

CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

THELMA D. DRAKE, Virginia 

ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

(Ex Officio) 

(III) 

(V) 

CONTENTS Page 

Summary of Subject Matter .................................................................................... vi 

TESTIMONY 

DeFur, Peter, Research Associate Professor, Center for Environmental Studies, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia ......................... 6 

Grumbles, Hon. Benjamin, Assistant Administrator for Water, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C. .................................................... 6 

Guidotti, Tee L., Chair, Department of Environmental and Occupational 

Health, School of Public Health and Health Services, The George Washington University, Washington, D.C. .................................................................. 6 

Larsen, Matthew, Associate Director for Water, United States Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia, accompanied by Herb Buxton, Program Coordinator, 

Toxics Program, United States Geological Survey, West Trenton, New Jersey .......................................................................................................................... 6

Linn, Keith, Environmental Specialist, Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, Cleveland, Ohio, testifying on behalf of the National Association of 

Clean Water Agencies .......................................................................................... 6 

Littell, David, Commissioner, Maine Department of Environmental Protection, Chair, Cross Media Committee, Environmental Council of the States, 

Augusta, Maine .................................................................................................... 6 

McCarthy, Hon. Carolyn, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

New York .............................................................................................................. 3 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Carnahan, Hon. Russ, of Missouri ......................................................................... 30 

Costello, Hon. Jerry F., of Illinois .......................................................................... 31 

Johnson, Hon. Eddie Bernice, of Texas .................................................................. 33 

McCarthy, Hon. Carolyn, of New York .................................................................. 37 

Mitchell, Hon. Harry E., of Arizona ....................................................................... 42 

Oberstar, Hon. James L., of Minnesota ................................................................. 44 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES 

DeFur, Peter ............................................................................................................. 48 

Grumbles, Hon. Benjamin ....................................................................................... 55 

Guidotti, Tee L. ........................................................................................................ 67 

Larsen, Matthew ...................................................................................................... 85 

Linn, Keith ............................................................................................................... 96 

Littell, David ............................................................................................................ 102 

STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

Larsen, Matthew, Associate Director for Water, United States Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia, response for request for information from Rep. 

Napolitano ............................................................................................................ 94 

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45022.002
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45022.003
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45022.004
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45022.005
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45022.006
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45022.007
(1) 

HEARING ON EMERGING CONTAMINANTS IN 

U.S. WATERS 

Thursday, September 18, 2008, 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON WATER RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT, 

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:00 p.m., in Room 

2167, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Eddie Bernice 

Johnson [Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 

Ms. JOHNSON. I would like to call the Subcommittee to order. 

This afternoon, we will be holding a hearing on emerging contaminants in U.S. waters, and we will try to move expeditiously for 

those who are operating under time constraints. 

Today’s hearing looks at the extensive range of emerging contaminants that are present in our surface waters. Many of these 

substances are either unregulated or under-regulated and include 

toxic chemicals, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and nano-materials. 

As many of you know, I spent my early years as a nurse—and 

we have a nurse facing us out there—and it is from that experience 

that I have been very mindful of threats, especially unnecessary 

threats, to human health. 

However, I am concerned with the growing body of evidence on 

the presence of toxic chemicals and their byproducts in the Nation’s 

waters and question just how safe our waters actually are, especially to human health over the long term. 

While the Clean Water Act was successful in controlling some 

substances, it is clear that today’s contaminants of concern are not 

the pollutants of yesteryear. For example, there are currently 

80,000 chemicals in use. This is a three-fold increase from 1941 to 

1995. Eight thousand of these are known to be carcinogenics. 

One would hope that all of these 8,000 cancer-causing poisons 

are somehow addressed under Federal and State authorities, including the Clean Water Act. Shockingly, this is not the case. It 

seems that less than 300 chemicals have permit limits. Today’s 

hearing provides us the opportunity to ask why this is the case. 

It is not as if emerging contaminants are new issues of concern 

for either the Congress or the EPA. In 1996, through the Food 

Quality Protection and Safe Drinking Water Acts, the Congress instructed EPA to develop a screening program to determine if certain chemicals and compounds disrupt hormones in humans. In the 

12 years since this mandate was put forward, the Agency has not 

begun to test any chemicals under this program, despite the potenVerDate Aug 31 2005 17:41 Jun 26, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\45022 JASON
2 

tial for these chemicals and compounds to cause great harms to individuals, especially to children and pregnant women 

Testimony from the U.S. Geological Survey will demonstrate that 

these endocrine disrupting chemicals, and many other toxic substances, are in our surface waters. Not only have they been demonstrated to harm aquatic life, they have the grave potential to 

harm humans. 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today about how 

these chemicals, these emerging contaminants, are getting into our 

waters. 

Our former Defense Secretary, Don Rumsfeld, famously stated: 

‘‘There are known knowns. There are known unknowns. But there 

are also unknown unknowns.’’ 

While perhaps it is a clever quip, we certainly saw how a reliance on such platitudes rendered our situation in Iraq during his 

tenure. We would certainly hope that our Nation’s Environmental 

Protection Agency is not taking the same approach with regards to 

unregulated toxic chemicals. 

Frankly, when it comes to the health of the very young, to pregnant woman, and to the elderly, there is no excuse for not knowing. 

I look forward to the testimony from our witnesses today on this 

very important hearing. I now yield to the Subcommittee’s Ranking 

Member, Mr. Boozman. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Thank you, Madam Chair. First of all, I want to 

congratulate you and Dr. Ehlers and the staff for the passage yesterday of the Great Lakes Legacy Act. That is something that I 

think that the Subcommittee can be very, very proud of, and we 

appreciate your leadership. 

Today, the Subcommittee begins to explore a new and important 

topic: micro pollutants in U.S. waters, sometimes referred to as 

contaminants of emerging concern. 

With the advent of better detection equipment, we are discovering a number of chemicals in our water that previously we have 

not considered. These substances may be naturally occurring or 

they may be manmade. Of those that are manmade, many are associated with human, industrial, and agricultural waste, including 

antibiotics, other prescription drugs, steroids, reproductive hormones, personal care products, products of oil use and combustion, 

pesticides, fire retardants, solvents, and the list goes on and on. 

These chemicals have been found in surface water downstream 

of urban center and livestock production areas. Many of these compounds seem to survive wastewater treatment. Some of these substances have also been found in the untreated drinking water 

sources for several U.S. cities. Where they are found, the concentrations of these chemicals so far has been relatively low and 

being compared to finding a drop of pollution in an Olympic-size 

swimming pool. Such low concentrations may not have any adverse 

human health effects, but we do not know how long these concentrations will remain low. 

We know that current drinking water and wastewater treatment 

processes are not designed to remove many of these substances, including pharmaceuticals. We know that at high concentrations, 

many of these contaminants have an adverse effect on the environVerDate Aug 31 2005 17:41 Jun 26, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\45022 JASON
3 

ment and on human health. We know very little about the chronic 

effect of low doses over extended periods of time. 

While there is a lot we do not know about the potential effects 

these substances might be having, we do know for certain that 

proper use of pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals have enriched the quality of our lives and our Nation’s economy. These are 

benefits that we certainly want to preserve. It would appear to me 

that there is a lot we do not know about the presence of these substances and to what degree they are actually a threat to human 

health and the environment. We certainly need to know a lot more 

before we decide on any regulatory course of action. 

I hope to learn more from the hearing today from this panel of 

expert witnesses. Hopefully, they can help us understand what is 

already known and what we still need to know about contaminants 

of emerging concerns in U.S. waters. 

I yield back, Madam Chair. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much. 

We will ask all Members to file their statements and they will 

be a part of the permanent record. We will go directly to our witnesses, since we are starting late. 

I am pleased to have a distinguished Member of the House testifying on our first panel, Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy, from 

the State of New York. 

Your full statement will be placed into the record, and if you can 

keep your comments to five minutes, we would appreciate it. And 

consistent with the Subcommittee practice, Members will not receive questions following the testimony, but, if we have some, we 

will contact you later. You may proceed. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE CAROLYN MCCARTHY, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW 

YORK 

Ms. MCCARTHY. Thank you, Chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson, 

and I want to thank Ranking Member John Boozman and Members 

of the Committee for holding this hearing and inviting me to testify. 

I commend the Chairwoman for all your hard work to keep our 

Nation’s waters clean; not just by holding this hearing, but also 

moving the Water Resources Development Act and Beach Protection Act, important legislation to ensure that our beaches are safe 

for swimming, which the House took up before we entered the summer beach season. 

I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you specifically 

about pharmaceuticals in our Nation’s waters. 

As you know, when the House took up H.R. 2357, the Beach Protection Act of 2007, I offered and withdrew an amendment to the 

bill. We engaged in a colloquy about pharmaceutical products in 

our Nation’s waters. I asked that hearings be held, and we agreed 

to work together on legislation to address this issue. That brings 

us here today, and I commend the Committee for acknowledging 

that we must begin to understand this important issue so that our 

constituents can feel confident when they are drinking clean, safe 

water. 

4 

An Associated Press study from March brought to light the fact 

that pharmaceuticals have been found in the drinking water supply 

of at least 41 million Americans. Last week, the AP did a followup study that found that even more Americans were affected by the 

contaminated water, approximately 46 million. 

In my State of New York, health officials found heart medicine, 

infection fighters, estrogen, mood stabilizers, and a tranquilizer in 

the upstate water supply. Six pharmaceuticals were found in the 

drinking water right here in Washington, D.C. We don’t know how 

the pharmaceuticals enter the water supply, but it is likely that 

some medications that are not fully absorbed by the body may have 

passed into the water through human waste. In some other cases, 

unused pills may have simply been flushed down in the toilet. Additionally, some agricultural products and medications may have 

run off into the groundwater supplies. 

In addition to antibiotics and steroids, EPA has identified over 

100 individual pharmaceutical and personal care products in environmental samples and in drinking water. Wastewater treatment 

plants appear to be unable to completely remove pharmaceutical 

products from the water. The presence of the pharmaceuticals in 

our Nation’s waters raise serious questions about the effects on humans and on wildlife. 

I, along with my colleagues Representative Tammy Baldwin of 

Wisconsin and Allyson Schwartz of Pennsylvania, have introduced 

legislation that would require the EPA to conduct a study on the 

presence and source of pharmaceuticals and personal care products 

in our Nation’s water. 

Pharmaceuticals and personal care products include prescription 

and over-the-counter therapeutic drugs, veterinarian drugs, fragrances, lotions, and cosmetics, as well as products used to enhance 

growth of health of livestock. 

H.R. 6820, the Water Assessment and Treatment Evaluation Research Study Act of 2008, or the WATER Study Act, includes a 

three-part report to be carried out by EPA working with other relevant Federal agencies. An initial report, due in one year after the 

bill is passed, calls for an analysis of what pharmaceuticals and 

personal care products are in the water, where they come from, and 

how we can regularly monitor for them. 

An interim report due in three years looks at the effects the 

products have on human and animal health, as well as methods to 

remove the products from our drinking water supply. A final report 

asks for an analysis of the long-term effects on human exposure to 

pharmaceutical products in our waters and the levels at which the 

products in our waters become harmful. 

The report is broken into three pieces because many interested 

groups explained the difficulty in completing a report from all the 

elements too soon, but some items we can know pretty quickly and 

can begin to respond to them in a better matter. Furthermore, initial results will prompt responses from the scientific community, 

which can also help form the basis of the items to be studied in 

the future reports. 

The final report asks for an update on all the findings from the 

initial and the second reports. The report will be used as part of 

5 

the Government’s efforts to better understand the effects pharmaceuticals in our waters have on human health and aquatic wildlife. 

I want to stress that my legislation is not intended to make any 

presumptions or accusations, or even say that a problem does exist. 

We are just looking for more information so we can make better informed choices and eventually move towards more sensible policies. 

Hopefully, the study will give us more information about the presence, source, and effects of the products that are in the water so 

we can begin efforts to ensure that the water is safe. 

We need to find out how these contaminants got in the water, 

what the risks are, and what steps we need to take to solve the 

problem. We need to know how are the pharmaceuticals entering 

the water supply? How much is in the water? What else is in the 

water that we do not know about yet? What are the effects on 

human health and plant life? What is the best way to dispose of 

pharmaceuticals? And how should we great water that has been 

contaminated with these products? 

How is existing Federal legislation, such as the Clean Water Act 

and Safe Drinking Water, sufficient to address the new products 

that we are finding? 

It is vital that Congress take up and champion the cause of keeping our coastal recreation and drinking water safe. This is a public 

health issue and we must act before the presence of pharmaceutical 

products reaches a crisis level. This study is a first and very important step in the process of addressing this issue. We need to accurately assess the risks of these contaminants in the water because 

some experts have suggested that the problem will only increase. 

We have seen a 12 percent rise over the last five years alone. 

I know that my bill, H.R. 6820, has been referred to the Energy 

and Commerce Committee because it focuses so much on addressing safe drinking water in specific, but I do recognize that this 

Committee handles the Clean Water Act, so it is important that we 

look at all of our Nation’s waters as well, including source water, 

to see where the problem begins. We can’t fully address safe drinking water without looking at the whole entire water system. 

I look forward to working with all of you, including the EPA, the 

water treatment companies, the drug companies, agricultural interests, and others to combat this issue. Before dropping the bill, we 

reached out to many different parties and will continue to talk. I 

know that we can come to an agreement on this issue, including 

efforts to educate people about safe disposal of medication. 

Just on a side, as all of us, you know, we go to the doctor, we 

get a prescription drug and we find, after a day or two, that we 

can’t take that drug—maybe we have a reaction to it—and you 

have 40 pills. I asked the doctor, what can I do with the pills. He 

didn’t know. So they are still sitting in my medicine cabinet because I don’t want to dispose of them any more because I am afraid 

they will get into our water system. 

Madam Chairwoman, I again commend the Committee for holding this very important hearing, would be happy to answer any 

questions, and look forward to working with you and the Committee as we go forward. Thank you very much. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much. We will not have questions 

for you. Thank you very much for coming. 

6 

Our second panel of witnesses consists of EPA’s Assistant Administrator of Water, Mr. Benjamin Grumbles; Dr. Matthew 

Larsen of USGS. Dr. Larsen is the Assistant Director for Water at 

the USGS and is accompanied today by Mr. Herb Buxton, the Program Coordinator of the Toxics Program at USGS; Mr. David 

Littell from the State of Maine’s Department of Environmental 

Protection. I am going to ask him to start testimony first because 

he has to leave. 

Following him will be Mr. Keith Linn, Environmental Specialist 

of the Northeast Ohio Environmental Sewer District, and Mr. Linn 

will be testifying on behalf of the National Association of Clean 

Water Agencies. We will then hear from Dr. Tee Guidotti, Chair of 

the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at the 

George Washington University. Our final witness on the second 

panel is Mr. Peter deFur, Research Associate Professor from the 

Center of Environmental Studies at the Virginia Commonwealth 

University. 

Your full statements will be placed in the record, and we ask 

that you try to limit your testimony to five minutes as a courtesy 

of the other witnesses. Again, we will proceed with Mr. Littell. 

TESTIMONY OF DAVID LITTELL, COMMISSIONER, MAINE DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION, CHAIR, 

CROSS MEDIA COMMITTEE, ENVIRONMENTAL COUNCIL OF 

THE STATES, AUGUSTA, MAINE; THE HONORABLE BENJAMIN 

GRUMBLES, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR FOR WATER, U.S. 

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, WASHINGTON, D.C.; 

MATTHEW LARSEN, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR FOR WATER, 

UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY, RESTON, VIRGINIA, 

ACCOMPANIED BY HERB BUXTON, PROGRAM COORDINATOR, TOXICS PROGRAM, UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL 

SURVEY, WEST TRENTON, NEW JERSEY; KEITH LINN, ENVIRONMENTAL SPECIALIST, NORTHEAST OHIO REGIONAL 

SEWER DISTRICT, CLEVELAND, OHIO, TESTIFYING ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CLEAN WATER 

AGENCIES; TEE L. GUIDOTTI, CHAIR, DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH, SCHOOL OF 

PUBLIC HEALTH AND HEALTH SERVICES, THE GEORGE 

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, D.C.; AND PETER 

DEFUR, RESEARCH ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, CENTER FOR 

ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES, VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH 

UNIVERSITY, RICHMOND, VIRGINIA 

Mr. LITTELL. Good afternoon, Chairwoman Johnson, Ranking 

Member Boozman, Members of the Committee. Thank you for accommodating my schedule. I am David Littell, Commissioner of the 

Maine Department of Environmental Protection. Thank you for inviting me here to testify on Maine’s experience with emerging contaminants. 

As a representative of the States, I hope to leave you today considering three issues. One is that the States simply do not have 

sufficient information nor resources to fully understand the human 

or environmental impacts of emerging contaminants in the waste 

streams, our waters, or our ecosystems. Two, there are certain 

characteristics of some substances that suggest a need for caution. 

7 

Those substances are particularly carcinogens, reproductive and developmental toxics, endocrine disruptors, persistent and very persistent substances and biocumulative and very bioaccumulative 

substances. Third, the States have established, in some cases, common sense and very practical innovative approaches to dealing with 

some of these issues outside the regular regulatory construct, and 

we will commend some of those approaches to the Federal level as 

well. 

Maine’s scientific and regulatory community has been looking at 

what we are calling emerging contaminants for well over a decade 

now. In 1995, Dr. Beverly Paigen, a scientist at Maine’s internationally renowned Jackson Laboratory, discussed endocrine-disrupting chemicals in a technical paper prepared for the Maine Environmental Priorities Project. 

In that paper she noted concerns regarding biological, human, 

and wildlife impacts, including increased incidents of certain cancers, particularly reproductive impacts including human reproductive impacts, and congenital abnormalities, among other factors. As 

a result of that paper, Maine joined with USGS and the EPA to 

conduct limited sampling in Maine that supplemented the national 

sampling to determine to what extent some of these emerging contaminants of concern were in our waters. 

In 2002, Maine submitted samples to U.S. EPA Region I for 

wastewater effluents and associated receiving water discharges in 

eight locations in Maine. These were scanned for only six emerging 

contaminants. In the majority of these samples, detectable amounts 

of certain contaminants were found in the majority of the samples, 

particularly, bisphenol-A was detected, triclocarban, which is an 

antibacterial agent in soaps, and detectable amounts of an emulsifier used in detergents and pesticides were found. In addition, in 

the majority of samples, one or more estrogen-like compounds were 

detected. 

In 2005, Maine also dedicated a portion of our limited funding 

to study the presence of estrogenic compounds in the effluent of 

three publicly owned treatment plants on the Penobscot River. In 

each of these discharges from our public sewer treatment plants, 

effluent was determined to be estrogenic when it was discharged to 

the Penobscot River. 

What is the significance of these limited efforts today? Well, the 

significance is, although the data is sparse, we have clearly determined that wastewater discharges in receiving water bodies have 

levels of some emerging contaminants which could impact at a biological level aquatic life. That is a significant concern. 

Furthermore, we do not know what the cumulative effect is of 

multiple contaminants such as endocrine disruptors which are discharged to water bodies. 

In addition, impacted populations can be difficult to predict, and 

let me use a particular example from Maine to illustrate that. 

Maine has been studying the impact of mercury in our ecosystems 

since at least 1980, significantly. The conventional wisdom until 

very recently was that mercury issues were primarily aquatic ecosystem issues, the belief being that mercury was deposited in rainwater, as well as snow, into our aquatic ecosystems and worked its 

8 

way up the food chain, ultimately ending up at the top end predator species—eagles, loons, and, of course, humans. 

Very recently, the BioDiversity Institute in Maine conducted extensive samples of 23 different bird species—ocean species, coastal 

wetland species, upland species, and inland wetland species. What 

they found is that certain species that have no direct contact with 

the aquatic ecosystem had mercury levels that were much higher 

than were expected. So we now know that we have a terrestrial 

ecosystem problem with mercury, where we don’t entirely understand the mechanism of fate and transport and how the mercury 

is getting into the birds, but we clearly have an issue that until 

very recently we didn’t realize we had in our terrestrial ecosystem. 

In addition, persistence, fate, and transport can be hard to predict, and by way of example of that I would offer the DDT example. 

Maine banned DDT four decades ago, and the United States followed in 1972. Despite that, we still have three river systems in 

Northern Maine that are under fishing advisories for DDT, and, of 

course, the situation is more significant nationally. 

In short, there is a lot that we don’t know when gaging the significance of the release of many of these potential emerging contaminants into our ecosystems. 

What we do know is that there is an ongoing need for additional 

research needs to determine the environmental and human health 

impacts of these contaminants when they are released into the environment, also, to determine the human health toxicology and the 

eco-toxicology of these contaminants. Along the way, we have observed, as Ranking Member Boozman said in his opening statement, that wastewater treatment plants do not do a good job of 

treating for many of these contaminants. They are not designed to 

do so and, in many cases, they simply do not do so. 

However, there are other alternatives besides the traditional 

Clean Water Act approaches to controlling some of these contaminants. At the State level, we and other States have pioneered product stewardship initiatives, and particularly in the area of pharmaceuticals, in 2003, Maine was the first State to pass legislation authorizing a mail-in rebate program for unused pharmaceuticals. 

Since then, many entities have worked on the details of working 

that out because, as you might imagine, with pharmaceuticals they 

are a little bit different, some of them are controlled substances, so 

the drug enforcement authorities had particular concerns with how 

the program was designed and my own agency had concern because 

some of them qualified as hazardous waste, so they had to be dealt 

with a little bit differently than some other product stewardship 

initiatives. 

Nonetheless, we have successfully ironed out all the details and, 

in 2007, the U.S. EPA awarded a $150,000 grant to the University 

of Maine’s Center for Aging, which launched a statewide mail-in rebate program. We expect that rebate program to remove 3,000 

pounds of unused pharmaceuticals from our waste streams in 

Maine. Those 3,000 pounds of pharmaceuticals will not go into our 

water of the United States or water of the State of Maine, which 

is our groundwater. 

Maine’s experience can be replicated and expanded nationally. In 

May of 2008, the international pharmaceutical company Roche pubVerDate Aug 31 2005 17:41 Jun 26, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\45022 JASON
9 

licized financial incentives to ensure that unused and outdated 

products are returned by retailers and others in the supply chain. 

Roche participates in pharmaceutical take-back programs in the 

EU and encourages those types of programs in the United States, 

but more could be done to work on those types of programs. 

While the overall structure of the Clean Water Act does not inhibit our work in this area and it is possible to use the traditional 

water quality criteria for individual toxics under the Clean Water 

Act, it is probably more effective to institute product stewardship 

initiatives to prevent these contaminants from entering the waste 

stream in the first place. 

In addition, I would respectfully submit that revisions to the 

Toxic Substance and Control Act would help ensure that the toxicity of the human health toxicity, as well as ecological toxicity, is 

better defined for existing chemicals that are in commerce and new 

chemicals before they are introduced in commerce. 

With that, I am happy to answer any questions the Committee 

might have, and, again, thank you for asking us to testify today. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much. We will ask the Committee 

Members to submit questions to you later, since it is just about 

time for you to walk out. 

Mr. LITTELL. Thank you, Congresswoman. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you. 

We will now go back to our regular order and ask Mr. Grumbles 

to start his testimony. 

Mr. GRUMBLES. Thank you, Madam Chair and Congressman 

Boozman. It is always an honor to appear before the Committee. 

I just want to say, if this does end up being one of the last times 

to appear before the Committee, what an honor it has been to work 

with you all. You identify the right issues, the key concerns, and 

that is what today is all about. EPA is concerned about pharmaceuticals and personal care products in water, but we are also concerned that utilities and communities not divert their resources 

and efforts away from higher priorities and risks. 

Therefore, EPA has developed a comprehensive four-pronged approach to deal with this emerging concern of different types of contaminants that are not currently regulated, particularly pharmaceuticals and various personal care products. The first prong, one 

of the most fundamental, is to strengthen the science. We all know, 

and I am sure that this panel will understand that there is a lot 

for us to learn. We need to help close the gap between what we 

know what we don’t know and what we need to know. 

The Agency is carrying out extensive studies and surveys at a 

national level and at a regional level to help close gaps in that first 

prong. I just want to mention a few of them. One of them is that 

we are conducting a study at nine sewage treatment plants to better understand what is going into the plant for treatment and what 

is coming out of the discharge. We have also conducted a pilot 

study on fish tissue looking for the presence of pharmaceuticals 

and other personal care products in fish tissue in five effluentdominated streams across the U.S. 

Madam Chair, we are also conducting a national survey of sewage sludge from 74 randomly-selected wastewater treatment plants 

to determine whether contaminants occur in biosolids and, if so, at 

10 

what concentrations. We have also carried out and will continue to 

issue grants to various organizations and work with research foundations and universities, including the University of Florida and 

Duke University. We are working with them and providing funding 

to help get answers to questions involving different types of contaminants of emerging concern. 

Madam Chair, we are also conducting something that is extremely important to the Agency, and that is to build upon the fish 

tissue studies that we have currently conducted. That is why we 

are expanding the scope of our surveys under the National Rivers 

and Streams Assessment to monitor for fish tissue and water samples at 154 developed and urban sites so that we can have a statistically representative estimate of the occurrence of pharmaceuticals 

and personal care products in fish tissue. 

We are also working, Madam Chair, with the National Research 

Council of the National Academy of Sciences. A critical question all 

of us are asking is to what extent does this present a risk to 

human health. So EPA will be working with the National Academy 

of Sciences and convening a workshop in December to help us all 

answer some of those fundamental questions about potential risks 

to human health. 

I would just reiterate to the Members and to the public that, so 

far, we do not have much evidence or information that there is a 

risk to human health. But I also would underscore that U.S. EPA 

is very concerned about potential impacts, impacts that we, USGS, 

and others have seen on aquatic life. 

Madam Chair, the second prong, in addition to strengthening the 

science, is to improve the public understanding and risk communication. We have established a Web site to provide information on 

the work that we are doing and to help utilities, health professionals, and the general public better understand and to put into 

proper context the nature of this risk, and we will continue to 

reach out to all our stakeholders and partners at the State level, 

at the local level, and in the private sector to underscore the importance of this issue and to improve upon risk communication. 

The third prong that we are focused on at U.S. EPA at a national 

level is identifying partnership and stewardship opportunities. We 

know that, as we wait for more information to come in for a verdict 

to be rendered from the scientific jury, we know that actions should 

be taken now. One of the key steps is to do more in terms of product stewardship. I am calling upon the pharmaceutical industry to 

do more to focus more on product stewardship. I think all of us can 

do more in the spirit of pollution prevention. 

The EPA, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and the Department of Health and Human Services has issued guidelines to 

help the public better understand that the toilet should not be 

treated as a trash can. We also recognize that there are lists of certain pharmaceuticals that may currently be labeled to be flushed 

down the toilet. We are working with various agencies to revise 

that list, but pollution prevention and stewardship are key. 

One of the most important things all of us can be doing, including this Committee, is to get out the word to the public that takeback programs and voluntary collection campaigns can be critically 

11 

important and a good way to protect the waterways as we gather 

more scientific information. 

Mr. Chairman, the fourth prong, a critically important one, is 

using regulatory tools. We know, at EPA, that regulations are 

needed, in addition to stewardship and partnership programs. I 

want to mention very quickly that there are several extremely important regulatory efforts underway that could lead to potential 

regulations under the Clean Water Act. 

One of them is under our effluent guidelines program, which involves conducting a comprehensive survey, gathering information 

on disposal practices for the health services industry—hospitals, 

nursing homes, veterinary clinics. EPA is watching the health services industry. We are going to work with them. We want all of 

them to work together to move the ball forward for more effective 

and appropriate disposal of unused pharmaceuticals and personal 

care products. 

We are also working to revise aquatic life criteria—a technical 

term under the Clean Water Act—which is also critically important. It means developing assessment methodologies so that we can 

do a more advanced job of translating endocrine disruption, genderbending effects on aquatic life, and translate that into the standards program under the Clean Water Act. A third area is the Contaminant Candidate Listing process under the Safe Drinking Water 

Act. We are looking very closely at potential pharmaceuticals and 

personal care products being added to the lists of potential contaminants that would, in the future, be subject to maximum contaminant levels. 

The bottom line, Mr. Chairman, is that the U.S. EPA is taking 

this matter very seriously. We are using a four-pronged approach. 

We know that we need to work with USGS and other Federal partners. We need to work with all of the governmental and non-governmental organizations to move forward and address these emerging contaminants in the most responsible and effective way possible, and I look forward to answering any questions the colleagues 

of the Committee may have. Thank you. 

Mr. TAYLOR. [Presiding] Thank you very much, Dr. Grumbles. 

We are now joined by Dr. Matthew Larsen of the USGS. Dr. 

Larsen is the Associate Director for Water at USGS. He is accompanied today by Mr. Herb Buxton, the Program Coordinator of the 

Toxics Program at USGS. Dr. Larsen is recognized for five minutes. 

Mr. LARSEN. Thank you, Congressman Taylor and Congressman 

Boozman and Members of the Subcommittee for the opportunity to 

provide the views of the U.S. Geological Survey Department of Interior on emerging contaminants in the environment. 

The observed presence of emerging contaminants in the environment has prompted public interest regarding potential adverse ecological effects and potential contamination of drinking water. Public awareness of the ways we handle and dispose of chemicals has 

increased. Industries are pursuing improved waste treatment technologies and management practices that are effective at removing 

these trace organic chemicals from surface and groundwater and 

waste products. 

The USGS studies a wide range of chemicals referred to as 

emerging contaminants. These chemicals include human and vetVerDate Aug 31 2005 17:41 Jun 26, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\45022 JASON
12 

erinary pharmaceuticals, detergents, fragrances, fire retardants, 

disinfectants, plastics, and insect repellents. The chemicals of 

greatest interest include those that enter the environment via 

human and animal waste. 

Many of these chemicals are a new focus for environmental research because they are used in relatively small quantities and 

were therefore not expected to be of significant environmental concern. They have been detected increasingly in the environment at 

very low levels. Despite these low levels, investigation is needed to 

determine if there are potential adverse environmental and human 

health effects. 

Although detection is an important component of the environmental assessment, ecological and human health assessments of 

the levels and mixtures observed in the environment are also essential. Research and monitoring by the USGS and others have 

demonstrated that many trace organic chemicals associated with 

human and animal waste have been entering the environment for 

as long as we have used them. The manner in which we handle 

and dispose of our waste can concentrate these chemicals in some 

environmental settings to levels that may be an ecological health 

concern. 

In 1998, the USGS initiated research on emerging contaminants. 

By 2002, a USGS study had documented the presence of these 

chemicals in the Nation’s streams and largely defined this issue in 

the United States. Since 2002, the USGS has published more than 

160 reports—some of which I have here—that document the occurrence, concentration, and mixtures of these chemicals in various 

environmental settings, including stream and well water, stream 

sediments, and soil amended with manure and biosolids. These reports also demonstrate the comparative contributions from various 

sources, including wastewater treatment plants, livestock production and animal feedstock waste, aquaculture, septic systems, combined sewer overflows, and industrial discharges. 

The USGS continues to conduct research on emerging contaminants in the environment. Our research priorities include assessing 

chemical loads from various sources, including industrial facilities, 

as well as the occurrence of emerging contaminants in waters that 

are the source of drinking water. Other research priorities include 

ecological effects such as fish endocrine disruption in streams enriched with wastewaters and the comparative performance of various water and waste treatment processes to remove emerging contaminants. 

The USGS conducts this research with a number of partner Federal agencies, including the EPA, Centers for Disease Control and 

Prevention, Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Oceanic 

and Atmospheric Administration. The USGS, EPA, and FDA cochair the Federal Interagency Work Group on Pharmaceuticals in 

the Environment and the USGS participates in the Endocrine Disruption Work Group, both under the auspices of the Committee on 

Environment and Natural Resources of the National Science and 

Technology Council. These work groups have further increased coordination of Federal research. 

Thousands of potential emerging contaminants are used in our 

homes and places of work to improve our health and quality of life. 

13 

USGS focuses research on those chemicals that are likely to be of 

environmental concern. Investigations of adverse health effects 

must consider the actual levels and mixtures of chemicals that organisms are exposed to in the environment. The results of USGS 

studies of environmental occurrence are used by many scientists to 

guide human and ecological health effect studies to assure that actual environmental conditions are being tested. 

Thank you, Mr. Chair and the Subcommittee, for the opportunity 

to present this testimony. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Doctor. 

Our next speaker will be Mr. Keith Linn, Environmental Specialist with the Northeast Ohio Environmental Sewer District. Mr. 

Linn will be testifying on behalf of the National Association of 

Clean Water Agencies. 

Mr. Linn, you are recognized for five minutes. 

Mr. LINN. Congressman Taylor, Ranking Member Boozman, and 

Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to 

provide testimony on the emerging contaminants making their way 

into the Nation’s waters. My name is Keith Linn, and I am an environmental specialist for the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District in Cleveland, Ohio. I am testifying on behalf of NACWA, 

which represents the interests of municipal wastewater agencies 

nationwide. 

The purpose of this testimony is to provide the Subcommittee 

with a sense of the state of science on emerging contaminants and 

the major data gaps that still exist, to explain the increasing public 

and media attention this issue is receiving, and to explain that 

sound science, not fear, must be applied to this issue about which 

we still have so much to understand. 

These compounds are often described as emerging contaminants, 

despite the fact that many have been in the environment for a long 

time, ever since society began producing and using them. However, 

human use of the products containing them is expanding, meaning 

that more of these products are ending up in the environment. 

While households and individuals represent a huge non-regulated source of these products, other significant sources include 

manufacturing, retailers, hospitals, veterinary operations, landfills, 

and meat processors, just to name a few. However, no one has been 

able to confidently rank the relative contribution from each of these 

categories or their relative risks to human health in the environment. 

Increasingly sophisticated technology is revealing the presence of 

chemical compounds at lower and lower trace levels, down to 

nanograms per liter concentrations. A person would have to drink 

two Olympic-size swimming pools of untreated water from Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River daily to ingest as much as a single therapeutic dose of an antibiotic detected in the river. Stated another 

way, these concentrations are so small that they are roughly equivalent to one second in the last 10,000 years, that is, a single second 

in the time from the earth’s last ice age until now. 

Yet, presence alone is fostering awareness of and anxiety about 

emerging contaminants. The Associated Press released several stories earlier this year that focused on trace amounts of pharmaceuticals and other compounds in the drinking water of 24 cities. 

14 

The question is whether trace concentrations of these emerging 

contaminants in the Nation’s waters have a negative environmental or human health impact, and what the respective roles 

should be for manufacturers, retailers, users, and wastewater and 

drinking water utilities. 

However, identifying which emerging contaminants are of the 

greatest concern is exceedingly difficult, as many of these compounds are designed to have effects at low concentrations. Additionally, there is little or no data on the ecological toxicity of most 

of these compounds, and performing chemical analyses on all of 

them would be prohibitively expensive. We need to recognize that 

we can never have enough data to prove the absolute safety of contaminants, as it is impossible to prove a negative. 

Nonetheless, when people read or hear reports of possible effects 

in fish, they often become concerned about similar effects occurring 

in humans. This issue could be significant for wastewater utilities 

if regulations and subsequent technology standards arise out of a 

public perception that a problem exists. 

The Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District is actively involved 

nationally through membership on the NACWA Emerging Contaminants Work Group and on the Water Environment Research 

Foundation’s Trace Organics Issue Area Team. Locally, the Sewer 

District has spearheaded the creation of a multi-agency used medication work group. This local work group has developed an outreach campaign to educate the public on proper medication disposal 

methods and it seeks to establish a regular and legal medication 

collection initiative. 

NACWA has been involved in efforts to remove from commerce 

potentially harmful products that add little or no practical value, 

such as soaps and detergents containing triclosan. NACWA has 

also participated in discussions with EPA on permethrin-impregnated clothing and copper and silver biocides that may create problems for aquatic life. The Association has established a partnership 

with the Product Stewardship Institute to develop a comprehensive 

approach for managing the disposal of unused pharmaceuticals and 

personal care products, and many of NACWA’s member agencies 

have established pharmaceutical take-back programs to keep these 

compounds out of the environment altogether. 

However, product stewardship initiatives such as drug take-back 

programs face numerous barriers, including Federal narcotics laws 

and guidelines that continue to advise certain prescription drugs be 

flushed into the sewer system. At the same time, EPA and other 

regulatory agencies may ultimately require utilities to remove 

these same drugs from their wastewater effluent. Clearly, preventing illicit drug use must be of a priority, but NACWA feels 

strongly that there are better ways of managing prescription drugs 

without resorting to disposal in the sewer system. 

In addition, NACWA strongly encourages Congress to address 

other emerging contaminants in a cooperative manner with the 

regulated community. Before regulation of any contaminants can 

be contemplated, EPA must first answer whether, and at what levels, these compounds can reasonably be expected to result in effects 

on human health or the environment. Substantially greater funding for the appropriate research is needed before broad national 

15 

regulatory strategies are implemented. In the meantime, opportunities exist for collaboration and innovation, including research, 

community collections, take-back programs, and aggressive public 

education campaigns. 

Thank you for your time and the opportunity to testify before the 

Committee. I would be happy to answer any questions you may 

submit. 

Ms. JOHNSON. [Presiding] Thank you very much. 

Mr. Guidotti. 

Mr. GUIDOTTI. Thank you very much. Chairwoman Johnson and 

honorable Members, I am Tee Guidotti. I have retired as chair, but 

I remain Professor in Environmental and Occupational Health at 

the George Washington University School of Public Health and 

Health Services. I am here today representing only myself, however. 

Advanced testing technology has quantified the amounts, but 

neither the levels nor the range of contaminants should be a surprise to us; we have known that these substances are in water. It 

shouldn’t be any surprise, either, that these substances are 

present, that they exist wherever there is an upstream source. At 

present, these levels are probably not enough to affect human 

health, but, if levels rise for any of a number of reasons, this possibility cannot be ruled out for the future. 

Why would they rise? Well, for one thing, the population is 

aging. More and more people are taking medications. For another, 

there are changing patterns of prescriptions. So the burden of 

pharmaceuticals is likely to not only increase, but to change in 

terms of its pattern. And the population of various communities are 

increasing, so that upstream loading of the waterways is likely to 

increase. 

I see two issues, two broad issues. One are trace organics, particularly pharmaceutical agents, which are widely dispersed. And I 

would include, by the way, silver and copper nanoparticles, because 

I think that this is an emerging issue that we are going to see 

much more of in personal care products and in hygienic products. 

The other problem is emerging contaminants of a more restricted 

nature. 

For the pharmaceuticals and similar trace organics, I think that 

we need a comprehensive program on a national level. I think that 

we need a commitment and comprehensive programs to enforce watershed protection and upstream source protection; and this may 

involve land use planning, because this is not the only issue that 

affects watershed integrity and upstream protection. We clearly 

need take-back programs and we need coordination with DEA. A 

great deal has already been said about this, I won’t repeat it. We 

need a well designed evaluation and monitoring program to determine national trends for the loading of trace organics in source 

water. 

We don’t need individual utilities to invest valuable funds that 

could better be used to treat the source and to create mitigation 

technologies as their infrastructure needs are met, rather than to 

conduct monitoring programs in each individual city and drinking 

water system. Personally, I think that would be a waste of reVerDate Aug 31 2005 17:41 Jun 26, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\45022 JASON
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sources. We know that we need to know the general trend; we don’t 

need every single utility to do it for themselves. 

We need a research program that is robust and cost-effective 

looking at multivalent water treatment technologies that break 

down and remove a broad spectrum of contaminants, because many 

of these contaminants are, at present, best removed through singular and rather expensive technologies that only work for a limited range of chemicals. And we need the deployment of technologies to remove contaminants, which I personally think is best 

done as a program of continuous improvement as infrastructure 

needs are taken care of, rather than a crash program, which would 

be much more expensive and which would change priorities from 

other more pressing issues with respect to water quality. 

That is one set of problems. Another set of problems are emerging contaminants of a more restricted nature, and this includes 

quite a long list. It is in my written remarks, I won’t repeat the 

list right here. But these point source emerging contaminants need 

to be handled differently. Generally speaking, they are local problems. We need systematic research and tracking where they are 

most likely to occur, and the solution for these issues is more likely 

to be local and targeted, rather than a minimal to a national strategy. 

Finally, the last thing I would like to say is that we need to be 

aware that the recognition of other very heterogeneous sets of 

water pollutants raises another issue which should be considered, 

and that is the issue of simultaneous compliance. As we have seen 

with the lead issue, where compliance with the disinfection byproduct rule inadvertently pushed many utilities into water chemistry 

secondary effects, which forced them out of compliance with the 

lead and copper rule, we need to have a more integrated approach. 

We need to have a research that looks at the compatibility of various regulations in water quality. The best way to do this, I think, 

is to adopt new regulatory models if there are multi-contaminant 

and multiple risks. 

We need to think through the integration of the Clean Water Act 

and the Safe Drinking Water Act, rather than having the current 

fragmentary system, which is quite different with each State. We 

need to conduct research from the utilities point of view and on 

local water chemistry to better embed public health research in the 

regulatory frameworks and monitoring, and acknowledge the role 

of education and communication for the informed public. 

I just want to say one thing very quickly in closing, and that is 

that there is an aura of uncertainty and, if you will, anxiety about 

water that I think, to a large extent, is exaggerated, and we are 

beginning to see this in opposition to disinfection in drinking 

water, which is a catastrophic potential move if that movement 

ever gained force. People are becoming cynical about their water. 

I think we need steps and I think we need risk communication 

strategies to reassure them, educate them properly, and to alleviate 

these concerns. 

Thank you. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much. 

Mr. deFur. 

17 

Mr. DEFUR. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, Chairwoman 

Johnson and Members of the Committee. I appreciate the opportunity to present testimony on emerging contaminants in the surface waters of the United States and present some of my perspectives on how the Clean Water Act may be improved. 

I am Peter deFur. I am an Environmental Scientist and a Research Associate Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, 

although my comments are my own and do not represent the position of VCU or any other organization with which I am affiliated. 

Your timing with this hearing is absolutely impeccable. It was 

only two days ago that the Food and Drug Administration held a 

public hearing on one of the emerging contaminants, bisphenol-A, 

or BPA, expressing some of the great controversy over the scientific 

evaluation and whether uncertainty means that you proceed with 

caution or you proceed full steam ahead. 

But to go back to two historical examples over this issue, it was 

1991 when researchers demonstrated that compounds could come 

out of plasticware, they could leach out and cause biological effects 

in an experimental situation and beyond the laboratory. Where 

were those compounds going if they were coming out of the 

plasticware when the plasticware was being washed? 

The next piece of historical information that is important is when 

scientists in Britain discovered that fish were having hormonal 

problems and they realized that male fish had female characteristics. Putting those fish in cage downstream from the effluent of 

sewage treatment plants, male fish were becoming feminized 

through something that was coming from those. As a result, we 

had investigations, many of them conducted by U.S. researchers, 

including USGS, to identify what is coming out of our effluents, not 

just from sewage treatment plants, but from other facilities, and it 

turned out a number of those were hormonally-active agents and 

we began to look at what else is in those. 

You have already heard from USGS about the great variety of 

compounds that are present not only in our Nation’s waters, but in 

some of the discharges that we can identify. Those compounds are 

not just pharmaceutical agents. They are not just from personal 

care products. They are from everything that comes out of the 

house. They are from things that wash off our lawn. They are from 

things that we use in commerce and things we use everyday. 

Some of them include caffeine, and it includes the breakdown 

product of nicotine, that is, cotinine. These are commonly found in 

the waters of the United States. One of the more recent publications by USGS in 139 rivers and water bodies found that both of 

these were fairly common. Also, the plasticizing agents. 

It is also evidence from research that has been conducted since 

that time, much of it since 1991, 1992, that there are a number of 

chemicals that are very active at very low concentrations. Some of 

these chemicals do act like hormones, and hormones act at the 

level of just a few molecules. That is how we function; that is how 

all animals on the face of this earth function. They depend upon 

internal chemical signals. 

Much of the information that we have is very incomplete. We 

don’t have good toxicological information on 80,000 chemicals in 

commerce. But we do have information on a number of those toxic 

18 

chemicals that are reported on the USGS list. The information 

comes not only from the peer reviewed scientific literature, but also 

from EPA reports on toxic chemicals and from the Agency for Toxic 

Substances and Disease Registry. 

These investigations suffer from one of the major problems that 

you have already heard about that is in the Clean Water Act. We 

know about individual chemicals, and we know because we started 

them on animals in model systems under controlled situations in 

the laboratory, one chemical at a time, starting with fairly high 

concentrations. We don’t know much about how low concentrations 

over long periods of time affect animals in the wild or humans. We 

have very little information about that. 

The Clean Water Act has only criteria for less than 200 chemicals. If we are going to go through tens of thousands, we are going 

to be here for millennia before we have enough criteria to be able 

to manage this problem properly. 

One of the things that we need to do in the Clean Water Act is 

provide for a comprehensive evaluation of effluents on some regular 

basis that identifies every chemical that comes out of there, so that 

at least we have a complete picture of what is in the effluent, regardless of whether or not there is a water quality criterion or a 

standard. 

The second one is we need to have the ability to regulate mixtures. EPA and the State regulatory agencies need to do something 

more than individual chemicals, chemical-by-chemical regulation. 

They have to be able to do this. If we wait five years, until all of 

our studies are done, we will still be sitting here worrying about 

mixtures, and the chemicals that we have spent five years studying 

will no longer be a problem—somebody will have reduced them— 

and we will be looking at another group of chemicals about which 

we know nothing. 

We have to do something to develop pollution control measures 

at the top of the pipe, not just product stewardship, but the ability 

for dischargers to identify the source and control those sources. Pollution prevention is not only more effective, it is cheaper. 

I would be happy to answer any questions now or at a later time. 

Thank you very much. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much. 

Let me thank the entire panel for very interesting testimony. 

I am going to defer to Mr. Hall for questions. 

Mr. HALL. Thank you, Madam Chair, for your holding this hearing and for allowing me to go first. 

I just wanted to start by asking Mr. Grumbles does EPA routinely and systematically monitor for pollutants present in surface 

waters? Specifically, does EPA routinely monitor for toxic chemicals 

that do not have permit guidelines? And why or why not, depending on the answer. 

Mr. GRUMBLES. Thank you, Congressman. EPA does not routinely monitor for contaminants that don’t have criteria or effluent 

guidelines for them. What we do is encourage our State partners 

and utilities to monitor not only for those contaminants which are 

regulated, but also we want to encourage monitoring and pollution 

prevention both through the pretreatment program and through 

other regulatory programs. But we are very careful not to impose 

19 

enforceable regulatory requirements for contaminants that don’t 

have assessment methods or established criteria under the Act. 

Mr. HALL. Thank you. I understand. Does EPA routinely or systematically monitor for toxic chemicals that don’t have permit 

guidelines that may be present in wastewater or effluent discharges? Would that be the same answer? 

Mr. GRUMBLES. It is the same answer with the added point that, 

under the Clean Water Act, we have a duty which we take very 

seriously to continuously, on a yearly basis or twice a year basis 

look at effluent guideline requirements to make possible requirements or new water quality criterion standards. 

I just think it is important to emphasize we started a national 

survey specifically on pharmaceuticals and personal care products 

not only for the effluent, but also for biosolids. We think that is 

going to help us, just like Congresswoman McCarthy’s bill, focus in 

specific directions future potential regulatory action. 

Mr. HALL. Thank you. 

I want to ask Mr. Linn, do wastewater treatment facilities discharge unregulated toxic chemicals? In other words, do wastewater 

treatment facilities discharge toxics that do not have permit limits 

and do these facilities monitor for those toxics? 

Mr. LINN. Wastewater treatment plants will discharge anything 

that is in sewage that is not adequately removed by the plant. Anything that society uses and puts down the drain is going to reach 

wastewater treatment plants, and, as we heard earlier today, there 

are 80,000 chemicals in use out there. 

There are certainly quite a few chemicals out there that we do 

not monitor for. To do so would be very expensive and prohibitively 

expensive, and in many cases a lot of these things that we are talking about here, the emerging contaminants, are occurring at levels 

that we are just now starting to see with cutting-edge analytical 

technology, and there is a lot of uncertainty associated—even when 

these expensive analyses are performed, there is a lot of uncertainty associated with the accuracy of the data that is produced. 

Mr. HALL. I understand that. I believe it was Mr. Littell’s testimony in which he said or one of the panelists said that we are now 

seeing, in the long-lived substances that we are talking about, that 

we are seeing all of the medications or chemicals or toxics that we 

have produced going back to when they were first put into use and 

started being put in the ecosystem. 

So it has gone from being unmeasurable or unnoticed to being 

measurable and noticed. I assume that that means you would agree 

that if we keep on doing what we are doing now, that that level 

will continue to rise and, therefore, whatever degree of risk there 

currently is, there will be a greater degree of risk if we don’t take 

any action, which is why everybody is talking about the different 

actions we can take. 

USGS demonstrated that surface waters contain a host of unregulated contaminants, including carcinogens and endocrine 

disruptors. So the question I would just ask, maybe starting with 

Dr. deFur and going down the line, is are our surface waters or our 

aquifers safe for our infants, for pregnant women? Do we know 

that they will not negatively impact human health over the long 

term? 

20 

I have heard medical professionals in my district, as this topic 

has come to the fore, saying, hmm, I wonder about the increase in 

autism or the increase in Alzheimer’s. There are some things that 

are happening we can’t explain and people are blaming it on thimerosal or whatever. But it raises the question, whether it is silver 

or whether it is caffeine or acetaminophen or some combination of 

antibacterials or the synergist effect of all those things. 

So just a quick reaction not that. 

Mr. DEFUR. Sure, I would be happy to answer that. No, I think 

they are uniformly not safe because we have several thousand 

water bodies that are under EPA regulatory controls for one or 

more chemicals either in the water or in the fish that live in there, 

so very sensibly, in some cases, they regulate fish tissue concentrations of things like flame retardants, polychlorinated biphenols, 

DDTs, mercury. So if you look at the water in the fish, we have 

thousands of water bodies that have some regulatory warning or 

concern over the levels of those compounds. 

Mr. HALL. Madam Chairman, my time has expired, so if you 

would like to—I yield back if you want to let the rest of the panelists answer or answer in writing. Either would be fine. Thank you. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Boozman. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Thank you, Madam Chair. We do appreciate your 

being here, Mr. Grumbles, and have appreciated your testimony 

through the years. You have done a tremendous job. You mentioned that you were concerned that we needed to explore this, but 

you had some concern about resources being moved off things that 

you felt like were not necessarily important, but more in a situation we needed to deal with now. Can you name one or two of those 

things that you are concerned with that we are dealing with that 

we are not doing as good a job? 

Mr. GRUMBLES. Raw sewage, various mixtures of sewage; 

wastewaters that have pathogens in them. We know that there is 

an acute risk not only to aquatic life, but to human health. Beach 

water quality toxics that are on our national priority list for toxic 

pollutants that are persistent and bio-cumulative. 

This Country has made tremendous progress over the last three 

and a half decades cleaning up the waters, to make them cleaner 

and healthier. We still have a long way to go, and the key to success in the future and sustainable clean water program, as you and 

your colleagues know, is not just to focus on what you are currently 

doing, but to keep an eye on the science and the growing need to 

deal with emerging areas of concern, and that certainly includes 

pharmaceuticals and personal care products, even though they are 

occurring at truly tiny trace amounts. 

The question about mixtures, as was pointed out, the question 

about potential impacts, long-term impacts on human health are 

all very legitimate valid questions. The U.S. EPA’s position is that 

this is very good. This is great for the Committee, in a responsible 

way, to be drawing attention to this growing concern. We are getting so much data. Our microscopes are getting so much stronger. 

We can detect chemicals and pharmaceuticals to a greater extent 

than ever before, but we need to be careful and communicate the 

risk and also make sure that there is a risk-based approach to the 

21 

priorities. That is why I am just saying that we know aging infrastructure systems, pathogens and persistent toxics are already 

being regulated need to continue to focus on those. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Good. Very good. And if that stuff is getting 

through, then this other stuff is getting through with that. You 

know, if we have raw sewage, then all of this stuff is getting 

through. 

Mr. GRUMBLES. That is right. That is right. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Very good. 

Mr. Linn, can you tell us a little bit about the challenges of removing this stuff, what it would take with present technology, the 

energy that it would take? If we could do it, are we running into 

a situation where, if we did do it, that you would almost create 

other environmental problems or not? 

Mr. LINN. You are talking about moving—— 

Mr. BOOZMAN. The expense. The whole bit. 

Mr. LINN.—it out of wastewater treatment plants. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. If we could snap our fingers today and fix this, 

what are the challenges that we face with doing that right now? 

Mr. LINN. Well, a lot of these things are already removed, at 

least to some extent, by wastewater treatment—— 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Well, the stuff that is showing up in the water 

now. 

Mr. LINN. Some of the stuff that is showing up—— 

Mr. BOOZMAN. The hormones and things like that. 

Mr. LINN. Some of the stuff that is showing up in the water is 

removed to a large extent by wastewater treatment plants now. 

Every chemical is different, and that is one of the problems; you 

can’t install a single technology at a wastewater treatment plant 

and remove all of any of this stuff. 

Again, the conventional treatment right now removes through a 

variety of processes, depending upon the characteristics of the specific chemical you are talking about, anywhere from a large amount 

of it to virtually none of it. So there is not an answer to a type of 

technology that you can just put at a wastewater treatment plant 

that is going to eliminate all of this stuff, it just doesn’t exist now, 

and it is unlikely to exist in the future. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. This is for the panel. What are some of the compounds that are we most concerned about that? You mentioned a 

molecule or two of hormones being a problem. Certainly, that, in 

a very small amount, could be a problem. What are we seeing that 

is elevated where—I don’t guess this stuff ever goes away, does it? 

I mean, does it or does it not? I mean, once it is in the water to 

begin with—— 

Mr. LINN. If I may answer that. Again, it depends on what particular type of chemical you are talking about. Some of the chemicals break down in the environment. That isn’t always a good 

thing. Sometimes they break down into something else that is potentially harmful, but sometimes they break down completely and 

they are gone. Other types of chemicals are very persistent and 

they last for long periods of time. So you get the whole range of 

potential results. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. What are the top two or three that we are concerned about? 

22 

Mr. LARSEN. If I could ask Mr. Buxton to respond. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Mr. Buxton? 

Mr. BUXTON. Sure. I think the way we think about priorities 

with respect to chemicals is the way they may affect organisms in 

the environment. The endocrine disruption process that was mentioned earlier is probably the most important process now because, 

as was acknowledged before, it happens with chemicals that occur 

at extremely low concentrations, and the chemicals fall in several 

classes that have this hormonal activity. 

Some are the biogenic hormones that come from our bodies and 

animals’ bodies; some are the synthetic hormones that we make 

and take as part of birth control—pills, ovulation inhibitors, those 

types; others are industrial chemicals that, by their molecular 

form, tend to mimic these hormones. So what we find when we 

study these effects in the environment, specifically the effects on 

fish that live right near where they may be introduced to a stream, 

is that we have to look at what we look at the relative 

estrogenicity, how much each of these chemicals act like estrogen, 

and then, in a way, add it up to see what the total effect may be 

of this mixture of chemicals. 

So I would say those are the chemicals that are most important, 

and it is quite a range of different chemicals. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Let me just close. You mentioned, Dr. deFur, the 

small quantities, you are saying, of the hormones and the importance of controlling the dischargers. The challenge, though, is that 

the dischargers in that case, I would argue that that is not people 

that have extra pills. The dischargers are us that are sitting here 

now. So that is a very difficult situation to deal with. 

Mr. DEFUR. Well, you have got a group of chemicals that are so 

widespread as to be almost ubiquitous and that essentially have 

passed through the human organism on their way to the water 

supply that may not be quite so amenable to a take-back program. 

But even those there may be excess supply that can be taken out 

of circulation, so to speak, by appropriate disposal mechanisms. 

I think that the hormone disruptors are the issues of greatest 

concern. Drop down a couple orders of magnitude and risk, there 

may be other effects, for example. One of the things that we are 

concerned about with the silver nanoparticles is that they really 

mess up water treatment systems, so they may have secondary effects that render our sewage treatment less effective. They may 

also have environmental impacts on the microorganisms that live 

in the aquatic environment. So that is an issue. 

And maybe, maybe in this same order of magnitude there are 

issues with the chemical called NDMA, which I won’t go into the 

technical side, but which has all of the unwanted characteristics of 

MTBE, which, as you will recall, made such a mess of groundwater. 

So these are not all on the same level, by any means, and the 

entire class of problems represented by these emerging contaminants is a couple of orders of magnitude less risk than some of the 

more conventional problems that Mr. Grumbles articulated so effectively a few minutes ago. 

23 

It is a question of putting things into perspective and being sure 

that the investment to control this does not take funds away from 

issues of a higher, short, and long-term priority. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Taylor. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

I do want to thank our panel. I would, though, at this moment 

have to tell you that all of you gentlemen have been very long on 

generalities and very short on specifics. It is my understanding 

that, at the moment, the FDA is four and five years behind just 

on checking food products from coming overseas, on checking on 

drugs coming from overseas. I guess my thought to you, as someone who has to explain to 700,000 Mississippians why we are $10 

trillions in debt, that unless you can identify a more specific problem and a more specific solution, I don’t think anything comes of 

this hearing. 

Raw sewage is already outlawed; you cannot dump that into the 

waters of the United States of America. We already have standards 

for biological oxygen demand. We have standards for fecal chloroform. We have standards for suspended solids in the water. We 

have standards for how much mercury can be in the water. 

I would think a more practical approach to what some of you 

have been saying would be a public awareness campaign. If you 

have isolated a specific drug that people are flushing down their 

commodes that is causing a problem and can give them a better alternative to disposing of that drug, then I think that would be 

worth funding. 

So I am going to give the panel an opportunity to be a bit more 

specific than you have been so far in this hearing. 

Mr. GRUMBLES. Congressman, I would just like to say I completely endorse your statement about public education and awareness and responsible use of taxpayer funds. There is no doubt, from 

an EPA standpoint, as we worked very hard and closely with FDA 

and with other agencies involved in the regulation of the pharmaceutical industry, product stewardship, and the Drug Enforcement 

Administration on take-back programs, that pollution prevention is 

key. It is the low hanging fruit as we continue to do more science 

and research, and it doesn’t involve sacrifice. 

One thing that I think is very important from an EPA standpoint 

is to continue to look for cost-effective treatment technologies at the 

sewage treatment plant. As Congressman Boozman mentioned, a 

lot of this isn’t simply unused pills being flushed or somehow getting into the sewers; it is also average daily excretion. So what can 

we do? I will tell you one thing we are doing is we are reviewing 

over 400 studies on current or promising technologies at the sewage treatment plant that can both detect and reduce the presence 

of these contaminants of emerging concern. 

I think it is important to go carefully and responsibly. It is also 

important, however, not to brush this off and say, well, the science 

hasn’t proven that there is some direct and immediate threat to 

human health; and I think you are saying the same thing. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Grumbles, I do appreciate that. So out of this 

panel, I have got to believe there is one thing that the panel can 

identify is saying we have strong reason to believe that this is a 

24 

problem. Fill in the ‘‘this.’’ And we have strong reason to believe 

that that can be solved by doing what? Because I really haven’t 

heard that today. 

Mr. GRUMBLES. I will say something. I know Matt Larsen may 

want to say something too. 

I will tell you what is a problem. A problem is when you have 

intersex fish. That is not acceptable. Particularly as we look more 

and find more, that is not acceptable. Now, what do we do about 

that? One thing we can do is to continue to gather more information so we know the potential causes. I know that it is important 

to look at the wastewater treatment plants; it is important to look 

at concentrated animal feeding operations; and to look at potential 

regulatory changes. 

But a key right now is to get out much more information on 

proper disposal of unused pharmaceuticals and take-back programs. We need to do a lot more across the Country to work on 

community-based and community-driven efforts, and work with the 

aging population to make it easier for them to understand and 

properly dispose of unused pharmaceuticals and personal care 

products. 

Mr. LARSEN. If I could add some specifics that might help in your 

appreciation for the problem and also how the drinking water 

treatment plants are responding. 

A recent study published last year by the USGS analyzed at one 

conventional drinking water treatment plant 113 organic compounds that included the list of types of chemicals we are talking 

about here today. Forty-five of these compounds were detected in 

samples of source water, the water coming into the plant, and 34 

were detected in samples of settled sludge and filter backwash. 

The performance of the plant, in general, granular-activated carbon filtration accounted for 53 percent of the removal of these compounds from the aqueous phase, disinfection accounted for 32 percent, and clarification accounted for 15 percent of the removal. 

The effectiveness of the treatment varied widely within and 

among classes of compounds, and the detection of 21 of the compounds in one or more samples of finished water—the water that 

we would be drinking at our tap—was documented and 3 to 13 

compounds in every finished water sample indicates substantial, 

but incomplete, degradation or removal of organic compounds 

through conventional drinking water treatment processes used at 

this plant. 

Unidentified SPEAKER. I have four specific suggestions. 

Mr. TAYLOR. It would have to be with the approval of the Chairwoman at this point. 

Ms. JOHNSON. We have multiple votes, so I am going to try to 

wrap up before we leave, and just ask Members—you can ask that 

one question, but I was going to ask Members if they will submit 

their questions so that we can submit them to the witnesses. 

I am going to call on one more, Mr. Brown. 

Did you have another? 

Mr. TAYLOR. No. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Okay, Mr. Brown. 

25 

Mr. BROWN. Madam Chair, thank you. I know a vote has been 

called for, so we have limited time, but I was just going to follow 

up on Congressman Taylor’s recommendation. 

Back in my early career, I was actually on city council, and 

wastewater treatment was a big issue for us. I know that about all 

I could get out of the guy that did the treatment is he puts these 

bugs in and I guess before we had primary treatment and had to 

go to secondary treatment because our local DEHAC was in South 

Carolina. So I guess if I could find a conclusion similar to what 

Congressman Taylor was talking about, if we could get some assurance that there is enough testing going on to be able to determine 

what is out there so we must have some criteria or some limits to 

what can pass and what cannot pass. 

How can we establish some criteria to be sure that if there is 

something in either the wastewater that is going out that needs to 

be diluted or whether, when we get our drinking water coming in, 

before it actually goes into the pipes, that there is some assurance 

that these items will be extracted? 

Mr. GRUMBLES. Congressman, I am just going to say quickly that 

EPA appreciates congressional support for efforts to do more to update and improve upon the aquatic life criteria and the scientific 

methods for factoring in a better way to evaluate gender-bender 

type of effects on fish. We are working with the Science Advisory 

Board on that. 

The other key area for us that can help establish criteria or 

standards in future directions in research and regulation and pollution prevention is working through the National Academy of 

Sciences on a road map for identifying potential human health 

risks. I think that has got to be a very important factor to justify 

the expense, the investments, and make sure we don’t divert attention away from higher priorities. 

Mr. BROWN. Thank you, Madam Chair. I know our time is limited. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much. 

Congresswoman Napolitano wants to ask a question and asks for 

a written response. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Very quickly, one of the things that I have not heard is whether 

or not EPA or USGS or anybody has the appropriate funding to be 

able to do all of the required analysis of everything that we are 

talking about, because, without the money, you can say you are 

going to do it, but if you can’t stretch the money far enough, it is 

not going to get done. 

Unfortunately, I have seen that in my area. We continue to try 

to identify in the sanitation district those pollutants in the effluent 

and everything else. So I would like an answer in writing as to 

whether or not the funding is adequate and whether or not you 

would be able to move forward more expeditiously with additional 

funding that will cover the work you have to do. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much. 

I am going to ask Congresswoman Norton if she can take the 

chair and ask questions. 

Let me once again thank the panel. This is probably one of the 

most interesting hearings we have had and probably with the most 

26 

questions. While Ms. Norton is coming, let me ask Dr. Guidotti, 

didn’t you say you were retired? Do you have any volunteer time? 

Mr. GUIDOTTI. I am retiring, yes. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Oh. Let us know when you are retired. 

Mr. GUIDOTTI. All right. 

Ms. NORTON. [Presiding] A dubious advantage of not being able 

to vote except in the Committee of the whole, so I get to ask my 

questions. I will assume that that can be counted as a tradeoff. I 

am not sure that it rises quite to the level that taxpaying Americans, however, would regard. 

I do have a question. I think this is an important hearing for us 

to have. In this region, we have seen what Mr. Grumbles calls 

intersex fish, among other deformities in the fish population. Recently, and only recently, frankly, did pharmaceuticals emerge; and 

if they have emerged here, they must be emerging everywhere in 

the United States. 

In this region, we have experienced lead in the water because we 

saw that, while there was regulation, there was manipulation of 

the regulations, and that was here in the District of Columbia. In 

the Nation, we are experiencing what can only be called an economic collapse of an entire section of the economy because nobody 

regulated in time. So I think we have got to begin to ask very hard 

questions that are proactive and preventative, especially when the 

handwriting is so clearly on the wall and everyplace else. 

The Chesapeake Bay, of course, is one of the great, marvelous 

wonders of America, but it cannot possibly be unique. So my question really has to do with how much we need to know before it occurs to us that something has to be done. 

Now, scientific certainty is impossible, and you will always get, 

as we should, conflicting views even from respectable scientists, 

and today, with, I think it fair to say, 90 percent of respectable scientists saying that there is some manmade warming going, you 

still have a debate going on on that. The planet may burn up before that one gets decided. 

But this one is very, very—this has a two-pronged problem—the 

pharmaceuticals, the intersex fish, the crab population that is drastically diminished in this region. The two-prong problem is a health 

problem—that is first and foremost—and, in areas like this, an economic problem that could get to be very severe if we wait for I don’t 

know. 

So I think it is fair to ask, in light of what we have already seen, 

whether that is enough to warrant at least some regulation, the beginning, at least, of some regulation. And I would like to know 

what, if any, regulation can be said to be relevant to what we are 

seeing clearly among changes in fish. 

Yes, Mr. Grumbles. 

Mr. GRUMBLES. You know, I don’t disagree with your statement. 

EPA is not waiting for a final verdict from the scientific community 

before we take action. 

Ms. NORTON. On what? Finish the sentence. 

Mr. GRUMBLES. Yes, exactly. On several fronts. On the regulatory front, we know, in this litigious society—we also know, in 

our approach to things, it has to be based on sound science before 

you take specific regulatory actions. You have to be able to defend 

27 

the record. What we are doing is we are pursing, on a regulatory 

front, we are going to be finalizing a concentrated animal feeding 

operations rule. We had to go back, based on a court decision, and 

revise it, and we are going to be issuing that rule in the next 

month, and it is focused on zero discharge from those large feed 

lots. 

Now, when it comes to regulatory actions specifically focused on 

pharmaceuticals or personal care products, Congresswoman, we are 

pursuing a survey to gather information from the health services 

industry—this is one of my highest priorities—that will help inform 

us as a potential regulation under the Clean Water Act for new effluent guidelines specifically for hospitals, nursing care facilities, 

veterinary clinics. That, we need to gather more information on, 

but we are very interested in and EPA is watching how the very 

large and important player in this, the health services industry, is 

disposing of pharmaceuticals and personal care products. 

We also, on the drinking water front, as you are very familiar 

with based on your rule and efforts in the lead and copper rule, we 

have a contaminant candidate listing process where the Agency, in 

a very formal way, identifies potential contaminants that aren’t 

currently regulated to decide whether or not to regulate those. We 

are in the process of reviewing, gathering public comments specifically on pharmaceuticals and personal care products. It is an area 

that merits a lot of attention from us. 

But I would just underscore what the other panelists have said, 

Congresswoman, so far, there is a lot of meaningful action that we 

can take that doesn’t fall into the regulatory category, that will 

really make a difference, that the taxpayers will feel is a good use 

of their money and also can reduce the risks from these emerging 

contaminants, and by that we mean product stewardship, working 

with the pharmaceutical industry, working with communities on 

take-back programs. 

Those are real and meaningful actions that we can take, and I 

know personally, in my position, I have seen, over the last year, a 

tremendous amount of increased effort and attention by communities and citizens groups and State and local governments, as well 

as EPA, on greater awareness about proper disposal of these personal care products. 

Ms. NORTON. Have you advised the States and localities—there 

is such consciousness today, aroused consciousness that consumer 

information would be a beginning, an important beginning. Has 

EPA advised States and localities—particularly since the Federal 

Government, it seems to me, has the capacity to do or access to the 

needed research—on how they should advise consumers, for example, to dispose of—there are all manner of chemicals, but let’s begin 

with pharmaceuticals, which are so common? I don’t know what to 

do. I don’t know what to do, by the way. 

Mr. GRUMBLES. I have written to every single State commissioner asking them, first of all, what they are doing on this emerging area of concern about pharmaceuticals and what types of research needs they have—— 

Ms. NORTON. I guess that sounds like—I think they might be 

asking you. 

28 

Mr. GRUMBLES. Yes. Well, we have met and we are working with 

the State water and drinking water agencies on research priorities 

and ways to improve risk communication. 

Ms. NORTON. Isn’t there something we can be telling the average 

consumer about disposal? 

Mr. GRUMBLES. Yes. 

Ms. NORTON. Pharmaceuticals are precious way now to save people from going to the hospital, it is not simply something for our 

elderly. Pharmaceuticals are so widely used that if there was general information so that every State and locality didn’t have to find 

out for themselves as to ten steps, six steps—you name it—that everyone can take, we might be able to begin—— 

Mr. GRUMBLES. That is an excellent point. In January of last 

year, the Administrator, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the Director of the White House Office of National Drug 

Control Policy issued national guidelines for the consumer. It was 

a first step, Congresswoman. It was a first step to encourage the 

proper disposal of unused pharmaceuticals, urging that the rule is: 

a toilet isn’t a trash can; if you are going to use a trash can, here 

is one way to dispose of it for security reasons and also environmental protection. We need to do a lot more work on that front. We 

can’t do it alone, and the State commissioners, the local utilities, 

the pharmaceutical industry, product stewardship initiatives—— 

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Grumbles, I recognize, because when I talk 

about these kinds of matters, I know I am not entirely in your jurisdiction, but the point I would like to make here is that is just 

what I would like not to happen. There is a reason why the EPA 

is a Federal responsibility. The waters, for example, from the District of Columbia go into the entire region; so does the Anacostia, 

the Chesapeake Bay, the Anacostia, the Potomac. There are no borders there. So that if what we encourage without some national 

guidance is exactly what the interstate clause is meant to avoid, 

some kind of pot marketed notion of how to dispose of things, then 

we will have conflict among the States, conflict among the localities. 

I am looking for some urgent national guidance, and I may not 

be talking to the officials here who are in a position always to do 

that, but I would hate to see us ask the States what they are doing, 

then have them feel panicked about making sure they are doing 

something without recognizing that one State could be doing something to protect itself which could be exactly what endangered a 

neighboring State or locality or waterway. 

Mr. GRUMBLES. I could not agree with you more. In terms of updating the guidance that we issued in January of last year and 

working on additional fronts, the RCRA program on reverse distribution systems is very much a priority for us, working on some 

national parameters with our State and local partners and drawing 

greater attention to this whole subject, embracing pollution prevention and product stewardship as we gather more information on the 

scientific front about the risks and the potential health effects. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, I want to thank the entire panel. My only regret, given my deep interest in this subject, is that I couldn’t be 

here for the entire time. I simply want to leave you all with the 

notion that I don’t think there is another thing that anybody could 

29 

want to learn about the need to begin measured and careful, but 

certainly to be in some regulation when fish start changing sexes— 

and we are not talking about a few abnormalities—and when whole 

or parts of the economy of regions are threatened. I hope that we 

have learned, certainly from the present economic crisis, that at 

some point not only will it be necessary to do something at some 

point, sometimes it is impossible to do something. 

So I urge, particularly for what is happening when it comes to 

abnormalities in fish, to take that as much of a warning sign as 

you need. We may not know as much about pharmaceuticals and 

the rest of it, but the decline in certain species of fish is now widespread and well known, and the abnormalities in fish, it seems to 

me, are more than indicators and deserve some thoughtful regulation, if you will forgive me, yesterday. 

I want to thank all of you for coming, on behalf of the Chair, to 

this very important hearing. 

[Whereupon, at 4:39 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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