Sorption and persistence of wastewater-borne psychoactive and antilipidemic drugs in soils

Purpose  

Although the ubiquity of pharmaceuticals in treated wastewater has now been well documented, their fate and risk during beneficial wastewater reuse are far less understood. Soil sorption and degradation are important processes affecting the leaching potential of trace contaminants in irrigated soil. To this end, we examined the sorption and attenuation of six psychoactive and antilipidemic drugs, i.e., carbamazepine, diazepam, Dilantin, meprobamate, primidone, and gemfibrozil, in a loam (LVL) and a loamy sand representative of golf course soils in the southwestern United States.