Traces of Fentanyl, Other Opioids in Canada’s Drinking Water an Emerging Concern, Say Scientists

A wastewater treatment plant in Vancouver Island in a file photo. The Canadian Press/Chad Hipolito

Fentanyl and other opioids have been found in trace amounts in Canada’s surface water and drinking water. When people use these drugs, some is absorbed into the body and the rest ends up in the wastewater stream and subsequently in the environment.

While the concentrations are very low and scientists say there’s no cause for panic, they are concerned about how drinking water sources may ultimately be affected and what long-term effect low dosages may have on humans and wildlife.

Researchers have been examining the presence of hormones and other contaminants in wastewater for some time, but the prevalence and impact of opioids is a relatively new area of study. Several Canadian and U.S. scientists discussed with The Epoch Times about what they’re learning and why it’s important to continue the research.

Viviane Yargeau, an environmental engineer at McGill University, first found fentanyl and other opioids and hard drugs in drinking water in 2015.

With fentanyl’s high potency even at small doses, it could be more of a concern than other opioids, she told The Epoch Times. But one would have to drink a very large amount of water in a day to consume even a fraction of what someone who uses the drug illicitly would, she said.

“I see no acute risk. Long term it might not be ideal, but no acute risk,” Ms. Yargeau said. “But the presence of this drug may contribute to a potential ‘cocktail effect.’”

It’s one of many so-called contaminants of emerging concern found in wastewater, and how those contaminants are mixing together and what effect that has are still being studied. Ms. Yargeau has been studying this problem for some 20 years, and she said interest has greatly increased in recent years. Many water-treatment facilities in Canada are proactively monitoring for these contaminants despite a lack of regulatory mandate to do so, Ms. Yargeau said.

She is one of Canada’s leading experts on contaminants of concern in wastewater, and she said she is unaware of any other analyses of fentanyl in Canada’s drinking water since her 2015 study. Fentanyl has, however, been found in drinking water according to other studies around the world.

Ms. Yargeau hopes to see more research on the issue.

“It’s important because it’s protecting the environment, and it’s protecting the quality of our water resources,” she said. “If we don’t protect it, down the road it’s the quality of our drinking water that will suffer.”

Opioid Effects on Fish

Mark Servos, Canada Research Chair in Water Quality Protection at the University of Waterloo, will soon begin studying the effects of opioids on fish. His previous research looked at the effects of other wastewater contaminants, including estrogen from birth-control pills. He found that estrogen changed the sex of male fish.

“[With opioids] we’re not talking about the level of impact that we saw with estrogen,” he told The Epoch Times. “I mean, we went out in the environment and opened up a fish, and there are eggs in the male fish. That was pretty dramatic, right?”

He cited a study by Chris Metcalfe of the Water Quality Centre at Trent University, one of the few studies that have looked at the impact of opioids on fish. Mr. Metcalfe’s 2021 study found the opioids codeine and fentanyl in six urban watersheds in southern Ontario, and conducted lab tests to determine the impacts of similar doses on fish.

Mr. Metcalfe and his colleagues found that codeine reduced fish fertility but didn’t observe a similar impact from fentanyl.

Mr. Servos said further research is needed. Drugs of abuse, or the most addictive types of drugs, can change chemical form in the environment, he said.

“They may have different toxicities, depending on which form of the chemical they are in,” he said. “What we’re looking at is what is the fate of these compounds, and can they get modified in the environment and have implications for the toxicity of other organisms?”

Mr. Servos said studying the problems can lead to effective changes in water-treatment.

His estrogen study had a positive impact, with the local water-treatment facility taking steps to reduce estrogen in the water. When Mr. Servos recently checked on fish in the area again, they were all normal and healthy.

“It’s a beautiful recovery story, a good news story,” he said.

Mr. Servos said it’s a matter of research priorities. It’s known, for example, that agricultural pesticides and nutrients cause problems in the environment, so working toward reducing that may be higher priority. Ms. Yargeau similarly noted that some people don’t have potable drinking water, so funding priorities are always a consideration.

Early Study of US Water

South of the border, Brian Logue, a biochemistry professor at South Dakota State University, recently conducted the first U.S. study on opioid levels in drinking water, published last year.

He found that 40 percent of samples from 53 locations across the country contained opioids, though he found no fentanyl specifically.

“It was something we were expecting,” Mr. Logue told The Epoch Times. He had seen Ms. Yargeau’s 2015 study in Canada showing opioids in the drinking water, and similar results in Europe.

Mr. Logue only tested for three opioids: codeine, hydrocodone, and fentanyl. He said studies in other countries have sampled for more, but he and his colleagues have developed a method of testing that he feels is more accurate than previous methods and they chose just a few opioids to illustrate their method.

Because this is the first study of its kind in the United States, he said it’s a “jumping-off point,” noting that further studies are needed to determine the level of risk to the environment and human health.

Tammy Boles, a professor at Tennessee Tech University’s School of Environmental Studies, has studied opioid levels in water from the nearby Cookeville Wastewater Treatment Plant. While she found trace amounts of opioids in the water there, she is more concerned about areas with a greater population density.

“I think we should all be concerned, but not panicked,” she told The Epoch Times. She also urges further research.

Ms. Boles is currently studying how methamphetamine may bind to microplastics in wastewater, she said, noting that a former doctoral student of hers is conducting similar studies in Canada. Since such research is in its infancy, it’s too soon to tell how this may play out in the environment, in drinking water, or in the human body.

Federal Response

Environment and Climate Change Canada did not reply to an Epoch Times inquiry as of publication regarding any concerns about the environmental impacts of opioids in wastewater.

Charlaine Sleiman, a spokesperson for Health Canada, told The Epoch Times the department has no official position on what concentration of fentanyl is considered safe in drinking water.

“Health Canada has not looked at fentanyl in drinking water, and therefore has no scientific position to share,” she said.

Statistics Canada is monitoring opioids in wastewater as a way of tracking drug use. Its 2021 wastewater survey found that levels of fentanyl in wastewater nearly doubled between April 2020 and May of that year, and nearly tripled in June and July. Spokesperson Melissa Gammage told The Epoch Times via email that Statistics Canada continues to collect wastewater survey data monthly and will publish its next release in early fall this year.

Mr. Servos said it’s important to strengthen the science around wastewater study because contaminants of emerging concern are a growing problem moving in a direction nobody can predict.

“We want to advance the science and understand these kinds of emerging chemicals,” he said. “Maybe it’s not fentanyl, but whatever comes after fentanyl, or after cocaine or methamphetamine, or any of these drugs of abuse that are coming down the road. We don’t know what the next one will be.”