Salmon Within Seattle Saturated With Cocaine and Antidepressants

Salmon lovers in Seattle won't be getting a fresh catch for quite some time. News emerged that salmon caught within the Seattle are highly contaminated with antidepressants, cocaine and other toxic chemicals.

A report from Seattle Times emerged that salmon in Puget Sound near Seattle are highly contaminated with waste water containing 81 drugs and other highly toxic substances. As a result, the salmon itself is contaminated with the water; thus, several drugs have been found in the tissue sample of the fish. According to Seattle times, the toxic substances found in the salmon's tissue are Tylenol, Flonase, Aleve, Paxil, Valium, Oxytocin, Nicotine, antibiotics and antiseptics.

A group of researchers took samples from the waters located nearby the sewage plants in 2014. The findings of the tests were astounding as they were able to discover that the water is fully saturated with contaminants. Despite the high toxicity levels found in the water, the researchers are unsure as to how the water got highly contaminated. The researchers noted that the drug levels in the water of Seattle are the highest in the United States.

Jim Meador, lead author of the study and environmental toxicologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, stated that he and his team were surprised with their findings after conducting the tests. Meador cited that the sewage water's toxic substance was higher than expected. Though a high amount of salmon were found contaminated with the toxic water, Meador cited that most individuals do not usually consume juvenile chinook salmon Yahoo News report.

"You have treatment doing its best to remove these, chemically and biologically," Betsey Cooper, the permit administrator from the Wastewater Treatment Division in Washington's King County told Seattle Times. "But it's not just the treatment quality, it's also the amount that we use day to day and our assumption that it just goes away. But not everything goes away."