SIUE Professor Shares Information About Water Testing and "Chemicals of Emerging Concern"

ALTON - Community members gathered at The Wedge Innovation Center for a conversation about safe drinking water.

On Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2025, SIUE Professor Dr. Carrie Butts-Wilmsmeyer presented “Safe Water, Strong Communities” as part of The Wedge’s Collaboration Lab series. During her talk, Butts-Wilmsmeyer explained how the Center for Predictive Analytics tested water across Illinois communities to find endocrine disrupting compounds, and she shared her findings.

“There’s stuff in our water,” Butts-Wilmsmeyer said. “We just don’t know how bad it is yet.”

Butts-Wilmsmeyer explained how the Center for Predictive Analytics collaborated with undergraduate student Milena Di Blasi to test water in communities across Illinois for “chemicals of emerging concern,” including the endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs).

EDCs interfere with the body’s endocrine system and can be found in certain pesticides, plastics, hormones and pharmaceuticals. Butts-Wilmsmeyer noted that these compounds have always been in our water, but our testing equipment is getting better, making it possible to detect them for the first time.

She emphasized that most of the chemicals of emerging concern are found at a very low concentration. She also noted that municipalities and water and wastewater treatment facilities do everything they can to ensure safe drinking water “to the best of their ability.”

“It’s not that anybody has been negligent,” she said.

EDCs can cause negative health consequences, even at these low concentrations. Behavioral changes, such as depression, anxiety and mood swings, are the most common side effects. If concentrations are too high, people can also experience fertility issues.

During their research, Butts-Wilmsmeyer, Di Blasi and their team took 250 tap water samples from communities across Illinois. They sampled water from at least two communities in every Illinois county, including eight samples in Madison County and four samples in St. Clair County. They then used solid phase extraction to test the water.

They found that 95% of the samples were contaminated. Of those, 50% of the samples were contaminated by the pesticide atrazine. Naturally-occurring estrogens contaminated 95% of the samples, and 50% of the samples were contaminated with synthetic estrogens.

Butts-Wilmsmeyer emphasized that this research into EDCs is in its earliest stages. While all of the water samples were contaminated, scientists and the Environmental Protection Agency must now decide what is safe to consume.

“The question is if it's too much or not,” she said. “That is the hard part to identify. What is too much and how do we know it’s too much?”

While this research is ongoing, there are a few things that residents and consumers can do to filter their water. The team found that surface water sources were more likely to be contaminated than groundwater sources, as groundwater sources have a natural filtration process.

With this in mind, Butts-Wilmsmeyer suggests choosing a water filter with charged or activated charcoal, as that seems to be most effective at filtering out EDCs. However, she shared that she doesn’t believe the fix should be delegated to the consumer.

She noted that water treatment processes are “great” for removing bacteria and ions, but we are still learning how EDCs affect people and how they can be removed from water. While the university and many scientific programs are currently experiencing a “budget cut” under the current federal administration, she said, she believes this research will continue.

“What do we do to actually address this problem at this time?” she added.

The Wedge hosts Collaboration Labs every month in partnership with SIUE. For more information about The Wedge and their upcoming events, visit their official website at TheWedge.Space.

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