News release: “The Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today to establish water-quality criteria for numerous endocrine-disrupting chemicals under the Clean Water Act, the first step in regulating and eliminating persistent and widespread chemicals that damage reproductive functions in wildlife and humans…Endocrine disruptors persist throughout our nation’s waters and are having profound effects on fish, wildlife, and humans. Endocrine disruptors can enter waterways via wastewater effluent and urban and agricultural runoff. Ingested drugs are excreted in varying metabolized amounts (primarily in urine and feces), and then municipal sewage treatment plants return these endocrine disruptors to our waterways as treated wastewater effluent. Endocrine disruptors can come from aquaculture, spray-drift from agriculture, livestock waste runoff from confined animal feeding operations, medicated pet excreta, or can leach from municipal landfills and septic systems.”