"AP Probe Finds Drugs in Drinking Water" is the screaming headline from The Associated Press this morning, and the story is all over network news that a vast array of pharmaceuticals -- including antibiotics, mood stabilizers and sex hormones -- turned up in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans.

The concentrations found in AP's five-month inquiry were tiny, far below the levels of a medical dose, and utilities insist their water is safe, according to the AP report.

But scientists worry that the presence of so many prescription drugs and over-the-counter medicines in drinking water could have long-term consequences to human health, the AP reported.

Meanwhile, The New Mexican in Santa Fe reported this morning that according to the state Environment Department, New Mexico has fewer problems with drug residues in its drinking water than other states.

The state tested sites around New Mexico for drug residues, but not antibiotics, from 2000 to 2002 and found some low levels of antidepressant medication downstream of Santa Fe's water treatment plant and at the Rio Grande Buckman Crossing, while a sample tested where the Espanola waste-water treatment plant empties into the Rio Grande turned up a trace of the anticonvulsant Dilantin, The New Mexican reported.

But the state's report said no drug residues were detected in the Rio Grande at Pilar, Cochiti Lake, Bernalillo, Paseo del Norte bridge, Belen, Bernardo, San Antonio or at Elephant Butte, according to The New Mexican.

"The one thing obvious to us is we don't have the magnitude of pharmaceutical residues that have been found in Germany and parts of the U.S.," Dennis McQuillan, remediation manager for the Environment Department's Groundwater Bureau, told The New Mexican.

The state's intense sunlight, sparse population and a lower median income all may have something to do with the lower levels, McQuillan told the paper.

Sparse population means fewer people excreting drugs, and lower income levels could mean "our people are not as medicated," said McQuillan.

And the state's intense sunlight "definitely looks like it plays a role in the rapid reduction of pharmaceutical residues," he told The New Mexican.

But the Environment Department told the paper it wants to keep tabs on surface water to make sure drugs don't become a water quality problem in New Mexico. 

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