Last week, the American Chemical Society released the results of a 2011 study that analyzed water contamination levels measured before, during, and after a massive music festival in Taiwan. In news that shocked roughly 27 parents, the 600,000-plus crowd of young people who stormed that year's Spring Scream fest introduced considerable amounts of MDMA (ecstasy), caffeine, and antibiotics into nearby rivers, along with a range of over-the-counter, prescription, and illegal drugs.

What was less obvious, according to the study (which was coordinated by multiple medical research facilities in Taiwan), was the intense impact an isolated, highly attended event could have on a region's ecology. "To our knowledge, up to now no study has comprehensively dealt with Emerging Contaminants (ECs) residues and demonstrated the impact of tourism—especially of a time limited mass event," the report stated.

The study collected water from 30 sampling sites on many dates throughout 2011, particularly those before, during, and after the Spring Scream music festival's duration. Among the findings: the waters saw spikes of illegal drugs that coincided with both locations and dates that were known for being popular with tourists. The locals were a bit more sedate, with general analgesics appearing most often in the waters they used. "These distribution characteristics imply that the levels of illicit drugs and controlled substances were affected by the influx of tourists," the report stated, "reflecting the important effects of holidays and the youth festival in this study."

In all, researchers found significant spikes of 15 substances (including MDMA, acetaminophen, ketoprophen, codeine, and more) that they think could pose a range of low to high risks on the aquatic life near Taiwan's Kenting National Park. However, that conclusion is based on how those substances affect aquatic life when they're given in isolation; the study pointed out that "the results should be treated with caution, as single-compound exposure scenarios are impractical in the real environment due to the unknown effects of multiple contaminants in combination, which in itself may be of considerable ecological concern." Simultaneous spikes of caffeine, ketamine, and pseudoephedrine could compound the impact of any one contaminant.

One of the study's largest takeaways was that most water treatment facilities are generally not equipped to process and filter such drugs in small amounts, let alone during highly populated events like a drug-filled music festival. However, without hard data on the overall effects of MDMA and ketamine on aquatic wildlife, nor a year-by-year analysis of how much drug use has increased at the Spring Scream over time, scientists were left merely hinting at the damage that could have been done to the region's soil, water, and the organisms that depend on both.

Environmental Science & Technology, 2014. DOI: 10.1021/es503944e (About DOIs).