Council ActionJoint Committees on Public Health and Human Services & the Environment
RECESSED
Other recorded action without a published tally.
Official action detail
Source: LegislationDetail.aspx · gridLegislation
Full Bill
WHEREAS
, And according to a March 11, 2008 article in
The Philadelphia Daily News
and a March 10, 2008 article in the
Associated Press
, the City’s Water Department has failed to informed its 1.5 million users that traces of 56 pharmaceuticals or their byproducts – like the active ingredients to treat depression, anxiety, high cholesterol, fever, and pain – have been detected in the City’s drinking water; and
WHEREAS
, It was also reported that traces of pharmaceuticals were found in the drinking water of 41 million Americans, living in 24 major metropolitan areas, and that 63 pharmaceuticals or their byproducts had been found in the City’s source watersheds; and
WHEREAS
, City residents receive their drinking water from two treatment plants located on the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers and these plants treat water for harmful micro-organisms, not pharmaceutical traces, and treated water returns to these rivers and eventually ends up in the City’s kitchen tap and drinking water; and
WHEREAS
, In response to the
Associated Press
report, the
Philadelphia Daily News
reported that alarmed City residents flooded the City’s Water Department with calls concerning pharmaceuticals and their byproducts in the City’s drinking water; and
WHEREAS
, One reason for this problem is that various residents discard pharmaceuticals and other items in their toilets, which ultimately returns to the City’s drinking water and one solution to this problem could be the expansion of the City’s prescription drug take-back program; now therefore, be it
RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA
, That the Committees on Public Health and Human Services and Environment are authorized to hold hearings regarding the safety of the City’s drinking water.
End