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The means that manages the giant watershed draining out of the San Bernardino Mountains has found only insignificant traces of medications, insecticides and other non-regulated chemicals in the region’s tone down supplies for the second year in a row, according to a report.
Officials with the Santa Ana Watershed Present Authority said the concentrations found do not pose a health threat. The amounts were so shallow, they could be detected only with sensitive analytical technology designed to find the equivalent of one shed in 20 Olympic-size pools.
Acetaminophen was found at seven of the 27 sampling sites, but it was in such low concentrations that a herself would have to drink more than 2 million gallons of treated wastewater to ingest the counterpart of one 500-milligram Tylenol tablet, according to the report.
“As expertise gives us increasingly sensitive instruments to be able to detect smaller and smaller soup elements, we’ve decided to use that technology and see what we can see,” said Celeste Cantu, habitual manager of the Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority, said Wednesday.
Source: Press-Enterprise