Frederick County Commissioners President Jan Gardner wants to get unused medicines out of the water supply, but federal requirements might make that difficult.Gardner has proposed requiring pharmacies to offer take-back programs as part of the county's state 2009 legislative list of priorities.
The program is intended to prevent residents from flushing pills down the toilet or putting them in the trash.
Once pharmacies have the medications, they could coordinate proper disposal, such as incineration.
Federal regulations of controlled substances, however, prohibit pharmacies from accepting medications, such as prescription pain killers, that are regulated by the Drug Enforcement Agency, according to a spokesman.
DEA spokesman Brian Boyle said there is no legal mechanism for pharmacies to accept unused medications defined as controlled substances.
The agency sees a need for such interactions, however, and is working with Congress to authorize it, he said.
Under current law, only law enforcement agencies working with the DEA can accept unused controlled substances at a local level.
When the county's Division of Utilities and Solid Waste Management offers unused medication drop offs at the landfill during its twice yearly hazardous waste collection, the division coordinates with the Frederick County Sheriff's Office to meet those requirements.
Such coordination might be difficult to administer at every pharmacy.
Gardner said she wants to do more homework on the issue. The commissioners will discuss the legislative package today, so it is not yet known if this proposal will move forward.
Jack Lynch, a Frederick resident on the Monocacy Scenic River Board and a board member of Friends of Frederick County, said studies are still being conducted, but many believe discarded pharmaceuticals and other endocrine disruptors could harm humans and the environment.
He frequently attends regional water quality summits and believes a federal solution is needed. In the meantime, he hopes state programs can lead the way.
It is a growing problem, but difficult to address he said. "It's just a very tricky area of the law, and it's not going to have a quick solution."
Scientists have yet to determine the impact of unused medicines on aquatic systems and on humans drinking them in water, but some studies suggest they cause reproductive changes in fish and pose health risks to humans.
The Environmental Protection Agency is taking steps to understand the potential impacts of pharmaceuticals in water, including a study of how institutions like hospitals and jails dispose of medicines.
The EPA is commissioning the National Academy of Sciences to advise on the potential risk to human health from low levels of pharmaceutical residues in drinking water.
The NAS will convene a workshop of scientific experts Dec. 11 through 12, to advise the agency on methods for screening and prioritizing pharmaceuticals to determine potential risk.
In Frederick County, a planned upgrade to the Ballenger-McKinney Wastewater Treatment Plant is expected to dramatically increase the county's ability to remove dissolved medications from sewage.
Treatment of water leached from the landfill, however, does not remove medications. And once the chemicals are removed from waste water, they will likely still be present in the sewage sludge that is typically applied to farmland.
The county is discussing a study with the U.S. Geologic Service on the amount of chemicals coming into the plant, how many are removed in each treatment process, and how many remain in the sludge.
Mike Marschner, director of the county's Division of Utilities and Solid Waste Management, said he believes the county needs to take an integrated approach to the problem.
More pharmaceutical collections are needed, he said, but waste treatment options must still be considered because some medicines remain in human waste, and some problematic chemicals come from other products.
"The more we understand about this, and the more pharmaceuticals are prevalent in society É and the more we have learned about them, the more we feel they need to be regulated," he said.
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