Providing further evidence that the world needs well-funded smart people focused exclusively on advancing water treatment technology, researchers in Colorado have confirmed that fish living downstream from wastewater plants in Denver and Boulder are changing sex and experiencing other sexual deformities due to unfiltered toxins present in the 'treated' sewage. The findings are detailed in a report in today's Denver Post.
The problem is that the obsolete technology in today's treatment plants is designed to filter out a limited group of pollutants and bacterias like Typhoid Fever that plagued cities 100 years ago. Not the traces of contraceptives, human growth hormones, and other pharmaceutical substances found circulating in today's water supplies. The problem extends well beyond the western U.S., with similiar studies available for waterbodies in the Great Lakes and the East Coast.
Targeting the development of innovative firms focused on biotech and watertech - and modernizing treatment plants - presents a groundbreaking opportunity for the Great Lakes region to confront this global challenge. It also presents a much needed opportunity for the region to lure high-tech jobs, diversify the economy, and compete more successfully in the knowledge-driven economy of the 21st century.
