Research on Emerging Water Quality Issues

Recent decades have brought increasing concerns for potential contamination of water resources that could result inadvertently during production, use, and disposal of the numerous chemicals offering improvements in industry, agriculture, medical treatment, and even common household conveniences. Increasing knowledge of the environmental occurrence or toxicological behavior of contaminants has resulted in increased concern for potential adverse environmental and human health effects. For many contaminants, public health experts have incomplete understandings of their toxicological significance (particularly effects of long-term exposures at low-levels). The need to understand the processes controlling contaminant transport and fate in the environment, and the lack of knowledge of the significance of long-term exposures has increased the need to study environmental occurrence down to trace levels. Furthermore, the possibility that environmental contaminants may interact synergistically or antagonistically has increased the need to define the complex mixtures of chemicals that are found in our waters.

The objective of this investigation is to develop information and tools on emerging water-quality issues that will be used to design and improve water-quality monitoring and assessment programs of the USGS and others, and for proactive decision-making by industry, regulators, the research community, and the public.

There are two components of the activities conducted under this investigation:

	Methods Development, and

Methods Development: Laboratory analytical methods are continually being developed that enable the analysis of new compounds in environmental samples at the low concentrations necessary to understand factors that effect contaminant occurrence, transport and fate. Initial focus has been measuring 95 different chemicals in water. Methods development activities are planned for various environmental media (water, sediment, tissue, and air), as dictated by the potential occurrence and cycling of contaminants. These methods are being developed in mulitiple USGS research laboratories with high concern for the ability to produce reliable data. This web page will be updated as new methods are developed and published.

Analysis of trace levels of sulfonamide and tetracycline antimicrobials in ground water and surface water using solid-phase extraction and liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (pdf file)

Field Studies: Field studies are designed to provide basic scientific information related to the occurrence and potential transport of contaminants in the environment. These studies will: provide increased understanding of various contamination sources (spills, leaks, wastewaters, waste-disposal facilities, and intended uses); identify what contaminants enter the environment, at what concentrations, and in what combinations; determine where these contaminants are occurring in the environment (e.g. water, sediment, air, tissue); determine spatial and temporal variations in contaminant concentrations; and identify contaminants that can serve as indicators of waters affected by specific types of sources.

	A National Reconnaissance of Pharmaceuticals, Hormones, and Other Organic Wastewater Contaminants in U.S. Streams, 1999-2000
	A National Reconnaissance of Pharmaceuticals, Hormones, and Other Organic Wastewater Contaminants in U.S. Ground Waters, 2000
	A National Reconnaissance of Pharmaceuticals, Hormones, and Other Organic Wastewater Contaminants in Sources of Drinking Water of the U.S., 2001
	Other related activities Sampling at fish hatcheries Chemical indicators of human fecal contamination (in collaboration with USEPA) Antibiotic resistance in the environment Samples during flooding on Upper Mississippi River (Patterson, G., Kolpin, D.W., Kalkhoff, S.J., Lee, K., Schnoebelen, D., Barnes, K.K., and Coupe, R., 2001, It's not just how high; it's how clean: Sampling the spring 2001 flood in the Upper Mississippi River Basin: EPA Watershed Events, EPA 840-B01-001, Summer 2001, 3-4). Temporal stream sampling during differing seasons and flow conditions

Related Headlines

	What's in Our Wastewaters and Where Does it Go?
	Measuring Pesticides and How They Transform in the Environment

	Endocrine Disruptors and the Water Industry Symposium, Cincinnati, Ohio, April 18-20, 2002 sponsored by the American Water Works Association
	2nd International Conference on Pharmaceuticals and Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals in Water, October 9-11, 2001
	Conference on Emerging Issues in Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 7- 8, 2000, co-sponsored by The National Ground Water Association, the USGS, and others.

More Information

	Project Bibliography
	For more information on the National Reconnaissance of Emerging Contaminants please contact Dana Kolpin.

Related Information from Other Sources

	Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products (PPCPs) as Environmental Pollutants (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency)
	Animal Feeding Operations Program, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Wastewater Management
	Antimicrobial resistance, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

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