Reports of contaminated drinking water have been seen in national news lately, but for residents in the Fort Smith and surrounding River Valley areas, this is not an issue. Though millions of Americans are drinking trace amounts of pharmaceutical drugs in their tap water from public water supplies, this problem has only been seen in major metropolitan areas. Experts say that these tiny amounts don’t come anywhere close to actually taking the drugs but scientists are concerned about the long-term effects of exposure.  

Fort Smith’s deputy city administrator, Ray Gosack, says “the places that are seeing this have sewage treatment plants pouring their output into the public water supply. Fortunately, the city of Fort Smith does not have any treatment plants affecting our water supply lakes.”  

Gosack attributes the lack of risk to both Lake Fort Smith and Lee Creek Reservoir’s strict watershed policies. Recent testing found the only chemical of consequence in these water supplies to be caffeine, which is sometimes added to pharmaceutical drugs to help the body metabolize them.  

Gosack assures that “the levels were about what you’d expect from a public water supply, and were not high enough to warrant a concern.”  

Northwest Arkansas’s biggest water supply, however, may be at risk. Beaver Lake receives water from sewage treatment plants, like metropolitan areas do. Arkansas cities have begun attempts to reduce the amount of drugs going into the water supply; Benton county just started PyroMed, a program that allows people to drop expired pharmaceuticals into drop boxes (available the second Saturday of every month from 8 a.m. to noon), which are picked up and incinerated. The Bella Vista Police Department also collects expired drugs and will take drop-offs at any time.