Why water test results have been secret

When water providers find pharmaceuticals in drinking water, they rarely tell the public. When researchers make the same discoveries, they usually don't identify the cities involved.

There are plenty of reasons offered for the secrecy: concerns about national security, fears of panic, a feeling that the public will not understand -- even confidentiality agreements.

"That's a really sensitive subject," said Elaine Archibald, executive director of California Urban Water Agencies, an 11-member organization comprised of the largest water providers in California.

She said many customers "don't know how to interpret the information. They hear something has been detected in source water and drinking water, and that's cause for alarm -- just because it's there."

As The Associated Press documented in a five-month investigation, drinking water provided to at least 41 million people living in 24 major metropolitan areas has tested positive for trace amounts of pharmaceuticals.

Most Americans probably think they have a good idea of what's being detected in their water. Federal law requires water providers to distribute annual "consumer confidence reports" that reveal levels of regulated contaminants. Providers are not, however, required to tell people if they find a contaminant that is not on a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency list. And there are no pharmaceuticals on the EPA list.

In Philadelphia, the water department has not informed its 1.5 million users that traces of 56 pharmaceuticals or their byproducts -- like the active ingredients in drugs to treat depression, anxiety, high cholesterol, fever and pain -- have been detected in the drinking water, and that 63 pharmaceuticals or byproducts had been found in the city's source watersheds.

Initially balking at the AP's request to provide test results, Philadelphia Water Department spokeswoman Laura Copeland said: "It would be irresponsible to communicate to the public about this issue, as doing so would only generate questions that scientific research has not yet answered. We don't want to create the perception where people would be alarmed."

Ron Rhodes, water treatment plant supervisor in Emporia, Kan., explained why he wouldn't disclose whether his community's source water or drinking water had been tested for pharmaceuticals. "Well, it's because of 9/11. We want everybody to guess."

How, Rhodes was asked, could it endanger anyone to know if Emporia's water has been screened for traces of pharmaceutical compounds?

"We're not putting out more information than we have to put out," Rhodes said. "How about that?"

Milwaukee's water department is an anomaly, posting on its Web site an 11-page detailed drinking water quality report that includes test results for 450 unregulated contaminants, including pharmaceuticals. While they found minute concentrations of cotinine, a nicotine derivative, they didn't detect hundreds of other contaminants including estrogens and other hormones, acetaminophen and ibuprofen.

When asked what power the EPA had to require public disclosure when pharmaceutical contamination is discovered in a water provider's supplies, Benjamin H. Grumbles, the agency's assistant administrator for water, said, "We work very closely with utilities across the country and we encourage them to share with their community information they find out about their source water."

Several hours after the interview, Grumbles issued a statement: "As head of the National Water Program, I will do everything in my authority to make certain that public water suppliers inform their consumers if they detect pharmaceuticals in the drinking water."

Some said those fears could lead to much larger problems than the actual contamination.

Doctors "don't want people to be afraid to take their medicine because of environmental concerns," said Virginia Cunningham, an environmental executive for drug maker GlaxoSmithKline PLC.