Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products (PPCPs)

What are PPCPs?

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What is the Problem with PPCPs?
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Should I be concerned about PPCPs in our surface water?

Pharmaceuticals refer to prescription and over-the-counter therapeutic drugs and veterinary drugs. Personal care products refer to products used for personal and cosmetic reasons such as soaps, fragrances, and cosmetics.

PPCPs are being discovered in our Nation's waters at very low concentrations. PPCPs are persistent in aquatic environments due to their continual release from discharges of treated and untreated wastewater. The US EPA reports that by the mid-2000s, there were increasing reports of the occurrence of PPCPs in surface waters and sediments.
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To date, research throughout the world has not demonstrated an impact on human health from trace amounts of hormones or other pharmaceuticals and personal care products found in water. While these trace substances may be detected at very low levels in source waters, people regularly consume or expose themselves to products containing these substances in much higher concentrations through medicines, food and beverages and other sources. The level in which they are found in source waters is very small in comparison.

The Watershed Council is keeping their eyes on PPCPs
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The Watershed Council is keeping their eyes on PPCPs
Safe water is critical to all of us. The Provo River Watershed Council knows that the more we understand, the more we can do to keep our water safe.  Because of this, the Watershed Council began periodic sampling and testing in 2011 for PPCPs in the watershed.  A suite of compounds are tested for and the results reported to the Watershed Council.  As of October 2015 the Watershed Council has analyzed 74 samples for 35 compounds for a total of 2,590 analyses.  Of the 2,590 analyses there have only been 22 times that a compound has even been detected, and most of those were at very trace amounts.  That is only 8/10ths of 1% of the samples that even had any type of PPCP detected. Of course these samples are taken for source waters.  Our drinking water is then put through significant treatment to bring it up to drinking water standards to make it even safer!