Surprising Ingredients Found in Puget Sound Waters

Scientists working in and around Washington state's Puget Sound have compiled what sounds like a pretty festive and flavorful shopping list: let's see, there's cinnamon, thyme and sage, some vanilla, and chocolate too.

Unfortunately, as reported by National Geographic, this is not a shopping list, but the results of water quality analysis from Puget Sound water samples, and the mechanism for how these items found their way into regional waters is, shall we say, not terribly appetizing.

Richard Keil is a professor of oceanography at the University of Washington and heads up the People for Puget Sound's Sound Citizen program that focuses effort on understanding how what we do on land has an effect on our water resources. Among the things we do on land are eat, drink and use the facilities, which leads us back to Keil and group's recent discoveries.

News coverage has increased over the past few years highlighting the detection of prescription and illicit drugs that exit our systems, some of which passes through wastewater treatment altogether ultimately entering the environment. But it is a surprise addition to what we know about the environmental fate of our own byproducts to learn of the detection not just of certain food ingredients and spices, but more interestingly, that there are variations in what might show up depending on the time of year.

According to National Geographic:

"For instance, thyme and sage spike during Thanksgiving, cinnamon surges all winter, chocolate and vanilla show up during weekends (presumably from party-related goodies), and waffle-cone and caramel-corn remnants skyrocket around the Fourth of July."

Keil and his team are not concerned that there are harmful effects of these particular food ingredients that threaten the well-being of the creatures living in the effected aquatic environments. Rather, it provides another opportunity for us to consider and be aware of the fact that our actions have consequences downstream.

Photo courtesy of Parametrix, Inc., via Wikimedia Commons