"Experts say Wisconsin lakes’ chemical cocktail likely similar to Minnesota's"

"On a midsummer morning last year at popular Lake Nokomis in Minneapolis, Mark Ferrey dipped a brown glass bottle into the water. His hands were gloved, he had drunk no caffeine, he wore no insect repellent. The slightest contamination would ruin the sample.

Below the sparkling surface swam muskies and walleye. Triathletes would be swimming there the next day. But Ferrey, a Minnesota Pollution Control Agency researcher, knew his sample would most likely turn up a cocktail of chemicals at trace levels.

According to results released last week, the Nokomis water was contaminated that day with a component of plastic, ibuprofen, a disinfectant used in hand soap, an antibiotic used on swine, a breakdown product of cocaine, an antidepressant, a fungicide and a drug used to treat Parkinson’s disease."

Kate Golden reports for the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism May 19, 2013. [2]