Fish on Prozac -- it sounds funny (easier to catch? Or harder, because they're too happy to be interested in your bait?), but it's really not.

That's because fish on Prozac, or any number of other pharmaceuticals that have made their way into our waterways, are unhealthy fish. Some drugs that show up in rivers, streams and coastal waters can "feminize" male fish, literally changing their hormonal balance and switching their sex from male to female.

Here in Maine, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study in 2002 showed evidence of up to five pharmaceuticals and personal care products in the water at 19 test sites. They were typical of the kinds of drugs and hormones found in other waterways in this country, which include birth control pill residue, acetaminophen and even caffeine (the latter in the waters off the Seattle area, of course).

How do they get there? Likely pathways are from human waste, which contains the drug leftovers that are not absorbed by our bodies and conscientious citizens who flush leftover medications down the toilet, which is what we're told to do to keep unused medications out of the wrong hands.

Yet as evidence has mounted that sewage treatment plants don't have the capacity to strip those drugs out of the water they treat, concern has mounted that medications in our waterways are making wildlife sick. Maine was one of the first states in the nation to address the issue when the Legislature considered a bill several years ago to establish a statewide program to collect unused drugs. In a classic legislative move of style over substance, the bill was passed, but the program wasn't given the funding to get under way.

Thankfully, that situation's beginning to change. With a title only a bureaucrat could love, the "Maine Prudent Disposal of Unwanted Medications" pilot program at the University of Maine Center on Aging has just been funded by the federal government to devise and implement a mail back plan for over the counter and prescription drugs.

The $150,000 grant will establish a network of 75 distribution points at pharmacies where unused medications can be dropped off, and from where they will be dispatched to safe disposal sites.

That's progress; we hope the pilot program will prove effective and replicable elsewhere in the state.

And while there is a big role for the state to play in organizing such a collection program, this is also a situation that demands the kind of individual behavioral change ("Don't flush those pills") that can and should become the focus of groups like physicians and pharmacists. That's already happened in at least one spot in Maine with the medication collection at mid-coast pharmacies last week. Let's hope that unlike the diseases those medicines treat, that kind of initiative is contagious and spreads widely.