Well apparently in quite a few cities around the country, you can find traces of pharmaceuticals, as in drugs. Yummy
The residues come largely from ordinary people who take medications. Their bodies absorb some, but the rest is excreted. Traces of veterinary drugs also are released in farm runoff. Ordinary treatments of wastewater and drinking water do not remove all pharmaceutical residues.
runoff from farms is just part of the problem, but it's something that most people don't ever think about.
That sort of thing is why I don't use pesticides or drugs around here...
People use all sorts of stuff and just don't ever think about it. They think it's harmless in so many ways, but in so many ways it isn't harmless. That stuff doesn't dissipate into the air... it ends up back in the water that we drink... not to mention the wildlife we hurt in the process.
ugh....
Sometimes I wish I lived a couple of hundred years ago...