City of Philadelphia - File #: 080288

• File #: 080288
• Version: 0
• Type: Resolution
• Status: ADOPTED
• File created: 3/13/2008
• In control: Joint Committees on Public Health and Human Services & the Environment
• Title: Authorizing the Council Committees on Public Health and Human Services and Environment to hold hearings regarding the safety of the City's drinking water.
• Sponsors: Councilmember Tasco, Councilmember Kenney, Councilmember Rizzo, Councilmember Greenlee, Councilmember Sanchez, Councilmember Jones, Councilmember Miller, Councilmember Clarke, Councilmember Blackwell, Councilmember Goode, Council President Verna, Councilmember Green, Councilmember Kelly, Councilmember DiCicco

Date	Ver.	Action By	Action	Result	Tally
4/14/2008	0	Joint Committees on Public Health and Human Services & the Environment	HEARING NOTICES SENT
4/14/2008	0	Joint Committees on Public Health and Human Services & the Environment	HEARING HELD
4/14/2008	0	Joint Committees on Public Health and Human Services & the Environment	RECESSED
3/13/2008	0	CITY COUNCIL	ADOPTED & REFERRED
3/13/2008	0	CITY COUNCIL	READ
3/13/2008	0	CITY COUNCIL	Introduced	Pass

Title
Authorizing the Council Committees on Public Health and Human Services and Environment to hold hearings regarding the safety of the City's drinking water.
Body
WHEREAS, And according to a March 11, 2008 article in The Philadelphia Daily News and a March 10, 2008 article in the Associated Press, the City's Water Department has failed to informed its 1.5 million users that traces of 56 pharmaceuticals or their byproducts - like the active ingredients to treat depression, anxiety, high cholesterol, fever, and pain - have been detected in the City's drinking water; and

WHEREAS, It was also reported that traces of pharmaceuticals were found in the drinking water of 41 million Americans, living in 24 major metropolitan areas, and that 63 pharmaceuticals or their byproducts had been found in the City's source watersheds; and

WHEREAS, City residents receive their drinking water from two treatment plants located on the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers and these plants treat water for harmful micro-organisms, not pharmaceutical traces, and treated water returns to these rivers and eventually ends up in the City's kitchen tap and drinking water; and

WHEREAS, In response to the Associated Press report, the Philadelphia Daily News reported that alarmed City residents flooded the City's Water Department with calls concerning pharmaceuticals and their byproducts in the City's drinking water; and

WHEREAS, One reason for this problem is that various residents discard pharmaceuticals and other items in their toilets, which ultimately returns to the City's drinking water and one solution to this problem could be the expansion of the City's prescription drug take-back program; now therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, That the Committees on Public Health and Human Services and Environment are authorized to hold hearings regarding the safety of the City's dri...