PT04 Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals in Wastewater Treatment Effluents
Exhibit Hall
8:00 AM - Tuesday
(PT057) Occurrence and Distribution of Steroids and Pharmaceuticals in Coastal Environments from the Florida Keys.
Singh, S1, Azua, A1, Gardinali, P1, 2, 1 Department of Chemistry, Miami, Florida, USA2 Southeast Environmental Research Center, Miami, Florida
ABSTRACT- Recently, the release of steroids and pharmaceuticals into the aquatic environment has raised the awareness of the central role played by treated or untreated sewage in the water quality along sensitive coastal ecosystems. Thus tracing the intrusion of sewage is an important environmental issue. Hormones like Estrone and pharmaceuticals like Triclosan and Caffeine are useful molecular tracers since they seem to be relatively persistent in the environment. Although the presence of Caffeine or other non-toxic pharmaceuticals and personal care products may not be relevant for the assessment of environmental impact, but the presence of biologically active molecules such as hormones, which can act as estrogen mimics, definitely is. Since, most of the Florida Keys do not have modern sewage treatment plants and rely heavily on the use of septic systems, a comprehensive assessment of different human waste contamination markers is needed in these areas to monitor water quality. This study presents occurrence and distribution of steroids and pharmaceuticals in water samples collected from different near shore stations along the Florida Keys in an attempt to evaluate the utility of different sewage contamination markers. In general, the results show that water collected from inland canals and marinas had low concentrations of multiple steroids, pharmaceuticals, and personal care products. The compounds more frequently detected were: Coprostanol, Cholesterol, Estrone, Equilin, Caffeine, Triclosan and Deet. However, the environmentally significant compounds were Estrone, Equilin, Caffeine and Triclosan, since these can be potential wastewater markers. The concentration ranges of Estrone and Equilin were found to be from 1.1 to 4.4 ng/L and the concentration ranges of Caffeine and Triclosan were between 9.3 to 800 ng/L. Co-occurrence trends were observed between the hormones (Equilin and Estrone) with Caffeine. However, no correlations have been established for the personal care products (Deet and Triclosan) with Caffeine yet. Although our three year survey had previously detected Caffeine in coastal waters from the Florida Keys, this is the first report of the occurrence of hormones and a much more robust indication that sewage intrusions could be important in these coastal ecosystems.
Key words: Pharmaceuticals, Steroids