momoese

Richard

Yes, in metropolitan areas there is a significant portion of the population who take 5 or more medications per day (like me!).

The spokesperson is correct in this way: too many people will either ignore or over-react, with too few in the middle actually working on viable solutions to the problem.

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momoese

I wonder if some form of distillation would help?

Richard

For some impurities, it is the only method of removal. There are three nagging problems with treating human and agricultural waste waters that are tainted with drugs.
1) current methods of removal or neutralization are very cost prohibitive - esp. distillation
2) for most drugs, we don't even know what safe levels are; ie., 1 in a billion? 1 in a trillion?
3) Even when the levels are dropped to incredibly miniscule amounts, the quantity sent out to sea over a 20 year time period is very significant.

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momoese

So do which do you think should have priority, drinking water or runoff to the ocean?

Richard

I don't believe it should be one to the exclusion of the other.

There is a group here (San Diego) at Scripps Institute who study the water budget of the earth. Of course there are similar research groups around the world. I can read their publications, but otherwise I'm a total novice. It is clear that the amount of runoff is currently too low, even with global melting of ice. I'm sure the balancing point is a matter of serious debate.

As for drinking water and water use by humankind in general, I would agree that we are not paying the true price of water use but instead pushing it off on the planetary ecosystem -- sometimes with harrowing results.

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