STEVE TIMKO AND LENITA POWERS
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNA
Posted: 3/11/2008
The major water supplier for Reno and Sparks is checking its water for the presence of pharmaceuticals, officials said Tuesday.
The Truckee Meadows Water Authority doesn’t expect to find such drugs in any significant quantity, said Paul Miller, manager of operations and water quality for TMWA. But no test has ever been done before, so a sample was taken Monday and shipped out for examination, Miller said. Results should take several weeks for the test that costs about $2,200.
“Don’t scare the customers,” Miller said. “We shouldn’t expect any contamination of the Truckee River water.” Sparked by reports of an Associated Press investigation into pharmaceuticals in municipal water supplies, water officials decided two weeks ago to look for someone to measure trace amounts of pharmaceuticals in the water.
The Associated Press reported Monday that an array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans.