Putting water testing on the fast track

A Milford company's technology is helping a UMass researcher cut the search for traces of drugs and chemicals to just minutes, instead of hours

Until March, David A. Reckhow worked in near anonymity as a professor and researcher in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Reckhow studies drinking water, and it was in March when news outlets picked up on what he and other researchers had known for years: Tiny doses of prescription medications, whether through excretion or simply by being flushed down the toilet, eventually end up in drinking water supplies across the United States.

"I'm not sure why it became such a big deal at that time," said Reckhow, who has been studying the issue for a decade. "You need to balance it against a lifetime of risks. In the big picture, it's probably not something to lose sleep over, but at the same time, we want to know more about the issue."

Three months ago, Reckhow and other UMass researchers' efforts to learn about the compounds being formed as drugs slip into drinking water supplies received a major boost from Waters Corp., which allowed them to use one of its AquaAnalysis machines. The machine is able to measure trace amounts of chemicals in a matter of minutes. Before, conducting such tests would take Reckhow and his team up to eight hours.

Jeff Tarmy, a spokesman for Waters, said the Milford company is targeting large utility companies which would want to undertake the kind of analysis Reckhow is doing in the labs of their own facilities as it looks to market AquaAnalysis. The product, with a price tag of more than $300,000, is also being marketed to research organizations, including universities and private firms, that would do the analyses for smaller water companies on a contract basis.

"This is for anyone that is looking at getting answers faster, and looking at getting answers with fewer resources," Tarmy said.

A study released last month by the US Geological Survey found low levels of 130 manmade chemicals in streams and waterbeds. After treatment, about a third of the chemicals remained in processed drinking water.

Utilities are not currently required to monitor for the chemicals identified in the study. The most prevalent chemicals are pharmaceuticals and the compounds that are formed when the drugs interact with each other as well as naturally occurring chemicals. The study, USGS officials said, was not meant to raise alarm, but to identify prevalent chemicals in certain areas of the country and help regulators fine-tune monitoring rules.

Reckhow is studying the water supplies of 15 public utilities, including the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority. Despite state-of-the art processing, most water-treatment facilities don't eliminate all of the pharmaceuticals entering the public drinking supply.

Reckhow's work will help utilities understand how to more efficiently remove drug traces from drinking water, as well as see what compounds are formed when chemicals interact, and what impact they may have on humans. The compounds have also been shown to cause problems with fish and other marine life, Reckhow said.

"The amounts are small, but during a lifetime of exposure, people are coming into contact with hundreds of pharmaceuticals," he said. "It's important that we try to understand the long-term effect on people, as well as what happens when these compounds come into contact with one another."

The advantages of the AquaAnalysis machine - which Reckhow has nicknamed Betsy - are readily apparent. The size of the sample needed is just a few ounces, compared with the liters researchers once needed. While Reckhow is mimicking how the plants treat water in his lab, other settings and studies may require a utility to ship samples of treated water to the lab. The smaller size of the samples needed lowers shipping costs.

But more than anything, Betsy provides Reckhow the speed that was unimaginable just a few years ago. That means researchers will be able to study a wider range of samples in a shorter amount of time and begin assisting utilities in finding solutions.

"We're creating compounds that are not naturally occurring in our drinking water," Reckhow said.

"The question we need to answer is 'How are we going to get rid of them?' "