Your Sewer on Drugs

Sewage is more than just filth. It’s evidence of our worst habits, everything from caffeine to cocaine, all ingested and flushed down the toilet. Now scientists are using wastewater to drug-test entire cities, and the results are sobering

By Eric Hagerman Posted 02.21.2008 at 3:51 pm 11 Comments

Field’s lab is the only one in the U.S. equipped to screen for all these substances in wastewater (she also analyzes Rieckermann’s samples). To pinpoint a drug or its metabolite in a dilute cocktail of everything flushed down the toilet—which could be any combination of the more than 30 million chemicals known to exist—Field employs a liquid chromatograph and mass spectrometer. The liquid chromatograph sorts and separates the molecules, and the mass spectrometer draws them into a vacuum, ionizes them, and identifies them based on their unique mass and structure. The method can identify compounds at a level of nanograms per liter, or parts per trillion. This sensitivity is on the order of spotting a square-foot tile in a floor the size of Indiana.

Roberto Fanelli and Ettore Zuccato: Roberto Fanelli and Ettore Zuccato are pioneers in the field of sewer epidemiology. When their research uncovered almost double the drug use than accounted for by official estimates, government drug agencies refused to believe it. Felice De Ceglie

WHOSE SEWAGE IS IT?

Taking and measuring the samples is relatively easy. The trick is figuring out how to interpret them. Heroin, for instance, is most easily identified by its metabolite morphine, but morphine itself is also used as a prescription painkiller. So you need precise values for all the morphine prescribed in a given population to be able to subtract that fraction out of the sample. For marijuana, the target molecule is THC, which is tricky in its own right. “There is a wide variation in the amount of active ingredient in grass,” Fanelli says. He relies on average potency, which can be gleaned from pot busts. Sewer epidemiologists must factor in all of these variables.

But assuming they manage to refine their technique, and sewer epidemiology becomes a reliable way to lay bare a city’s sins, what community will subject itself to such revealing scrutiny? One official in Oregon called Field and said his city wouldn’t participate in her study because several medical institutions feed into the treatment plant, and he feared that their contribution would skew the results and tarnish the reputation of his citizenry. And some people worry about how such methods might infringe on their civil liberties. One of the calls Field received after news broke about her proof-of-concept study, for instance, was from High Times magazine. “They wanted to know about privacy,” she says. “We’re interested in municipalities, not individuals. But when you go out and talk about this stuff, you can hit nerves. It opens the question of whose wastewater it is to give away.”

Despite Field’s sincere assurances about anonymity, once the methods of sewer epidemiology are firmly established, they could be implemented by anyone. Law-enforcement agencies could set up a monitoring index and even take samples right up to the curb of your home. Wastewater officials already have the authority to screen the effluent of industry to identify polluters; there’s no reason those samples couldn’t be run for illicit drugs.

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11 Comments

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daveywavey

02/29/08 at 6:11 pm

daveyWavey

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jabailo

03/23/08 at 3:56 pm

I just finished reading "The Ghost Map", a true epidemiology detective story to figure out what was causing cholera outbreaks in London during the mid-1800s. Turns out, it was a common well into which sewage had leaked.

We certainly live in a "global village" with stranger and more persistent disease.

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themarla

03/29/08 at 3:08 am

Oh, please come to Fresno, CA. I can almost guarantee that this entire city is being "whacked out" on chemicals, which leaves them oblivious to what is taking place right under their noses.
Think I'm kidding? I wish I was.

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dontbother

04/18/08 at 1:45 am

This might be an interesting article, but I will never know. Instead of simply publishing the story and taking the advertising revenue, Popular Science has chosen to (as many other sites do) spread the article over several pages to artificially over-inflate their page views and advertisement impressions.

If you made it through this article, you are a stupid victim of an unimaginative advertising scheme.

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Hitari0

05/15/08 at 10:13 pm

Could they simplify it to one page, perhaps?

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kardelen133 (not verified)

05/26/08 at 11:24 am

Hi All
I am a huge supporter of small wind, but I cannot think of many applicable situations for this design. This turbine seems to produce a pretty small amount of power for it's size and logistical concerns. A balloon holding up the other end of a string of turbines?? Good luck passing that through planning and zoning. I also believe that maintenence would be much more frequent with multiple turbines than some simpler designs. It's a cool idea, but before this guy spends much more time and money, he should pick up his guitar again.
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thanks.

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worldcommander

05/30/08 at 3:28 pm

dontbother said "if you made it through this article, you are a stupid victim of an unimaginative advertising scheme."

Wow, ease up salty! This is no different than the ads on the pages of almost every published magazine, the commercials between segments of the news, or the billboards on the way to some far off destination. Stupid is being offended or surprised they're there. Stupid is also the advertiser that thinks anyone is paying attention to the ads in the first place. Stupid is hardly anybody that made it to page seven of the article and didn't feel victimized by Popular Science.

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ilahilere

07/23/08 at 4:49 pm

ilahiler
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kraloyun

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ilahilere

07/23/08 at 4:53 pm

This turbine seems to produce a pretty small amount of power for it's size and logistical concerns. A balloon holding up the other end of a string of turbines??gazete okurüya gsmodelleri1 out of 2 people found this comment helpful

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