"When I started out in nursing almost 30 years ago, policy at hospitals was to waste partial doses of narcotics in the sharps containers," Deesy said.
As a contract nurse, she has worked "for just about every hospital within two hours of my home."
"To date, scientists have found no evidence of harmful effects to human health from medicines in the environment," the FDA website says.
For this reason, hospitals and hospital pharmacies have strict regulations that require nurses to document each use of a controlled substance, according to Payne.
A 2011 Government Accountability Office report on environmental health reads, "pharmaceuticals may enter the environment and ultimately drinking water supplies in various ways, such as through the elimination of human and animal waste, disposal of unused medicines down the toilet or drain, veterinary drug usage, hospital waste disposal, and industrial discharges."
And it’s not just one drug, say, one particular antidepressant.
As a result, pharmaceuticals have been listed as "contaminants of emerging concern" by the EPA.
Constable believes that "the question of mixtures is what has people in the EPA most concerned."
Focazio said the US Geological Survey has started looking more recently not just at what can be detected but at "what does it mean from a health standpoint."
"We don’t need to be destroying our water," Deesy said.