Think Salmon Before You Flush

I've recently come to the conclusion that my mind works in strange ways. I have two big papers to write this quarter, that are both worth a large part of my grade in each class. Keep in mind, I have 3 group projects going as well, and each are coming together very well, except for one. I am having the hardest time with a policy focused Ecology paper.

I've loved amphibians since I was a very small kiddo, and had a great outline prepared for a science based paper. Unfortunately, with the extension deadline came a stipulation. The paper must be written based on your major. I picked Environmental Planning and Policy, so my paper must be from a policy perspective. I immediately thought of wetland buffering, and protecting the metapopulations of Western Toads, a threatened species in Washington.

We must have as many primary sources as possible, and in this field, that means peer-reviewed journals. I've searched the EBSCO library as many boolean ways I could figure out, and can't find a primary source on any amphibian in our state. I did find excellent sources for my points, but nothing on the topic. I'm so frustrated, but it's back to the grindstone today to find one.

My other major paper is for my Senior US Environmental Policy class. I will be making the argument that a drug take-back program is much needed in Washington State, and that the current pilot program that exclusively contracts Group Health as take-back sites discriminates against poor and rural communities. According to the Puget Sound Partnership, a lot of pollution that ends up in the sound starts at the base of the mountains. When rural citizens have to commute over fifty miles to dispose of unwanted prescriptions, they are likely to flush them or throw them away. (Odd note - Carly Simon's "Let the River Run" just came on t.v. as I'm about to talk about salmon and orcas - keep that in your head for salience people).

Even our best sewage systems cannot clean out pharmaceuticals from the water, and it is flushed out as "clean water" because the "best available technology" is just coming on the market. I have family in Huntsville, Alabama, where the drinking water has tested positive for estrogens, mood stablizers and cholesterol medications. Yet, there has been no government incentive to install UV filtering in the water treatment plants, and communities are only "looking into them." In Maryland, where I used to live, male fish have been developing female parts and eggs for multiple generations now, because of high estrogen levels in the water.

The WA Department of Ecology released a report in 2007 that made every citizen responsible for the ultimate pollution of the Puget Sound. The report mainly focused on storm-water run-off from communities all along the watershed, but took a wholistic ecosystem approach on how all of the contaminants flow into the Sound. If you think about every community along the watershed of all of our major rivers in the Puget Sound Region, you can see how the pollution problem multiplies as you move downstream. Remember, Puget Sound Chinook Salmon and the three Puget Sound Orca pods are listed on both the federal and state Endangered Species List.

Currently, state and federal policy is to seal unwanted drugs in a plastic container, and throw them away. If it is a narcotic, they require that you flush it. There are three major problems with this policy, and I've already discussed the problem with flushing. Landfills do not have any policies in place to prevent seepage of unwanted pharmaceuticals into the groundwater, and they end up in the rivers and ultimately, the Sound. Not to mention, you and the garbage collector are breaking the law when you transfer those prescription drugs into their hands, because if you read any Rx label in Washington State, you've agreed to those terms.

As a private pharmacy, we walk a fine legal line accepting drugs from other pharmacies, unless the customer has asked us to repackage them for Assisted Living use. The Federal DEA has restricted us from accepting unwanted narcotics for destruction, and only a Regional District DEA hearing can grant a pharmacy the special permit. The formation of the Puget Sound Action Team, which became the Puget Sound Partnership in 2007, spawned a committee called WA PH:ARM which constructed a pilot project to take back unwanted prescriptions at Group Health pharmacies, and reimbuse them for their participation.

Group Health allows us to bill them for prescriptions, because they acknowledge that their pharmacy is up to 65 miles away from some municipalities in Snohomish County. Yet, the state and the Regional DEA will not allow us to accept unwanted prescriptions from our rural patients, even if we were willing to do it on behalf of Group Health, as we do with filling prescriptions. Do you see where I'm going here?

I know I sound like a lawyer, but I was appalled at how slow the pharmaceutical community is responding to the charges given to them by the Puget Sound Partnership. I want the community where I live and the community where I work to be able to hold Partner Status in the future, so they can continue to receive grants and funding from state agencies such as the Department of Ecology. Don't worry, I promised my uncle (who is a lawyer) that I would never go down that road, and I intend to keep that promise. This is a small action the Department of Health can take that would make a large difference in the health of our streams, rivers and groundwater. After that, we can move on to installing UV filtration into our water treatment centers to take care of those chemicals we excrete from our bodies.