Report says feds behind in river pollution regs

Published 11/12/09

SILVER SPRING, Md. (AP) — A new report says federal regulations are behind the times in dealing with chemicals making their way into the nation's rivers.

And that's important for the Washington area, which draws 90 percent of its drinking water from the Potomac River.

The report was released Wednesday by the Potomac Conservancy. The group says the chemicals include so-called endocrine disruptors, which are being eyed as the possible cause of intersex fish that have both male and female traits. Researchers are concerned that whatever is responsible for intersex fish may also be harming humans.

The group says endocrine disruptors are found in pharmaceuticals, personal care products, animal feed, and other products, and are not removed during wastewater or drinking water treatment.

YOUR COMMENTS

RULES OF PARTICIPATION

If you encounter other problems, please email ewiffin@capitalgazette.com and include your name, username, and any errors or messages that are displayed. The more information you can provide, the better able we will be to assist you.

In order to post or vote on a comment, you must be signed in with a hometownannapolis account.

Take a look at a summary of Commenting Guidelines.

Report Abuse or Vote In order to allow the user community the ability to collectively rank the value of comments posted on the Capital Gazette websites we have implemented a thumbs-up/down system. All logged-in users may participate by voting up/down each comment. If others vote on your comment, your individual score will go up/down depending on the votes. Initially, everyone starts with a score of zero, and must earn credits to have significant voting weight. Individuals with higher scores will have more voting weight. +4

Agricultural Pollution - 2009-11-12 14:33:39

I wish you folks would quit using the term "factory farm". Every farm is a factory producing milk, meat or grain. How many smaller polluting farms are you willing to walk by in order to get to that larger farm that is probably being regulated? I'm writing from south central PA where we just had our 2nd manure spill in 3 years. This one was from a 140 cow dairy. I guess under your ONLY worry about "factory farms" we shouldn't be worried by this small family farm; even if the spill killed a minimum of 1000 fish. I was VERY disappointed with EPA's Bay Strategy Report. If the word voluntary stays in there agriculture will never comply. Don't let anyone fool you; agriculture has a tremendous way to go before they can declare that they are protecting our streams.

unhide Comment hidden due to low ranking. Why is this comment hidden?

Doug Valentine - Hagerstown, MD - Karma: Neutral