A U.S. Geological Survey analysis of rivers surrounding Portland, Oregon, long known as one of the 'cleanest' cities in the U.S., has revealed a dramatic accumulation of designer synthetic chemicals in the mud of the Willamette and Tualatin rivers and several creek tributaries.

Drugs detected at high levels read like a medicine cabinet. There were three anti-depressants, a mood stabilizer, an antibiotic, an antifungual used to treat athlete's foot, high blood pressure medications, sedatives, antibacterials found in detergents, a fungicide, and the list goes on and on.

"So little is known about what they (the chemicals) do to fish and aquatic life that no one is sure what's safe in the environment over the long term," reported the Oregonian newspaper in early May. "Scientists were surprised by what they found. Scientists working on related studies found signs that something in the water is turning the bodies of local salmon haywire. Young male and female salmon from the Willamette River around Portland held traces of an egg yolk protein usually found only in adult female fish beginning to develop eggs."

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals were found in all but one of the 23 river sites sampled by the scientists. "Combined with PCBs, flame retardants and other pollutants already known to be present in local rivers," reported the newspaper, "the drugs and other substances put fish at risk in various ways, such as possibly disrupting their immune systems."

This study confirmed what THE HUNDRED YEAR LIE has been reporting:
"Water treatment plants were designed before any wide recognition that drugs and similar chemicals might be a problem. So many of the substances make it through the plants unaffected."

As for the effects on people who drink and bathe in the municipal water contaminated with these chemicals, scientists were quoted as saying "we just don't know" what the longterm impact might be.