The Associated Press reports the nation’s drinking water supplies are tainted with minute concentrations of pharmaceutical drugs, put there through wastewater discharge and trash disposal.

By all scientific accounts this pollution is not endangering our health, but now that such a circumstance has become public, will official outrage and potential overkill solutions be far behind?

First in line are the politicians. Several rush to the fore.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., is "alarmed at the news. I call on the EPA to take whatever steps are necessary to keep our communities safe."

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-New Jersey, is "deeply concerned" and plans committee hearings. Rep. Allyson Schwartz, D- Pa, wants the EPA to establish a national task force and make recommendations to Congress for action.

This is a familiar kettle of fish. Scientists, using ever more sophisticated measuring devices, find traces of contamination. They find no evidence of imminent harm to anyone but under pressure acknowledge that over indefinite periods of time these pollutants could conceivably cause harm. Politicians seeking spots at the front of the citizen protection parade cry for action.

Suddenly scientists and responsible government agencies are under the gun, pushed into an impossible position. The most treacherous political position for them is to argue against the presence of a problem. "Doing nothing" is the greatest sin of all. Doing something, even if wholly out of proportion to a perceived problem, gives public officials the political cover they want above all else.

When pressed to declare how much of a deadly toxin is safe for human consumption, official scientists are trapped. Anything above zero leaves them potentially vulnerable, even though unrealistic standards inevitably lead to exorbitant spending in pursuit of impossible solution goals.

At this early moment, responsible officials say in passing we must weigh potential benefit against cost, but can such restraint become an overt part of public policy practice?

If we are swept into "doing something," it will involve new and expensive levels of treatment for drinking water supplies and sewer sludge. Even then, pharmaceuticals can get into the environment through simple household and commercial disposal of unused products.

In the dioxin scare a few years ago, official scientists eventually came up with a near-zero standard leading the state Department of Natural Resources to dig up and incinerate the entire town of Times Beach. That was such a dramatic event it seemed to quiet the controversy even though it surely did not remove all dioxin from the environment. Maybe a few dramatic destructions of pharma water pools will give us comfort, like our predecessors used to derive from public hangings.

Of course we should notice real dangers that might arise from pharmaceuticals or any other toxin that endangers us, but to reasonably preserve our collective mental health and our public treasuries, we should wait calmly until danger really arrives. Leave it to our esteemed political leaders to make that impossible.

It is the same with narrow-minded people as it is with narrow-necked bottles: the less they have in them, the more noise they make in pouring it out.

- Alexander Pope

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