Complimentary Drinking Water Testing for the Presence of Pharmaceuticals

 

Responding to recent reports regarding findings of trace levels of pharmaceuticals found in U.S. drinking water supplies, Waters Corporation has announced that it will offer qualified U.S. water authorities complimentary drinking water analysis for common over-the-counter and prescription antidepressant pharmaceutical compounds to help assess regional exposure and move towards forward-looking solutions.

 

For 50 years, Waters has been producing advanced environmental solutions and working with regulatory and government agencies at all levels. For example, the Associated Press reported that the EPA recently published a method to test for pharmaceutical and personal care products in water, soil, sediment, and biosolids; a method which references Waters solutions throughout. More recently, Waters is applying advance technology to deliver an automated solution with improved throughput for drinking water analysis.

 

For a limited time, Waters will offer authorized officials from any U.S. water authority that serves more than 100,000 customers to submit a request for a complimentary test for common over-the-counter and anti-depressant pharmaceutical compounds of their finished water (tap water) by visiting www.waters.com/h20. Requests will only be honored from authorized water officials and the results will be held in strict confidence. Waters will not accept requests from third parties.

 

The intention of these tests is to provide a baseline understanding of exposure to facilitate long-term solutions. These complimentary tests will not be validated or certified, and are only intended as an initial screen for the detection of pharmaceutical residues.

 

Waters will test submitted samples using the AquaAnalysis System, a total system solution designed to detect a range of contaminants in drinking water. The AquaAnalysis System can detect target analytes at or below ten parts-per-trillion, easily meeting or exceeding regulatory standards worldwide. The AquaAnalysis System has been shown to improve sample throughput by up to 80 percent by cutting analysis times from between three to five hours to just 30 minutes.

In December 2007, EPA published Method 1694 Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products in Water, Soil, Sediment, and Biosolids by HPLC/MS/MS. Using Waters chemistry products, Method 1694 identifies pharmaceuticals and personal care products in environmental samples by high performance liquid chromatography combined with tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC/MS/MS) using isotope dilution and internal standard quantification techniques. This method has been developed for use with aqueous, solid, and biosolids matrices: (http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/methods/method/files/1694.pdf).