Wastewater in Nevada’s two most populated counties in April contained some of the highest concentrations of methamphetamine and fentanyl in the country, according to a federal study released this week.
The Office of National Drug Control Policy set out to monitor the use of illicit drugs in 100 counties from January 2025 to April 2026. It focused on three drugs: fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine.
The agency reported that wastewater levels of those three drugs are falling nationwide, though not in Nevada and other states, and published its findings Thursday in the first ever “Wastewater Analytics: A Powerful Window into Shifting Drug Use Trends” report.
“The publication of this new data is a tool for parents, teachers, medical professionals, and law enforcement officials across the nation to have the most up-to-date information on illicit drug use in their communities,” the report said. “By empowering communities across the nation, more American lives will be saved.”
Monthly samples were collected and analyzed by Biobot Analytics, the agency said.
April’s data showed that wastewater in Nevada and Colorado had the highest concentrations of methamphetamine. Meanwhile, the Silver State’s water that month was among the four states with the highest concentration of norfentanyl, a metabolite of the potent opioid fentanyl.
Over the 16 months, Nevada wastewater consistently ranked in the top 20 percent of testing sites with high concentration of those two drugs, the ONDCP said.
The research is part of a wide-ranging effort by the Trump administration to decrease drug overdoses, according to the report.
Drug overdose deaths in the U.S. have been declining over the past several years. The nearly 70,000 deaths in 2025 represented about a 14 percent year-over-year decline, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Wastewater: the pulse of the community
“The establishment of a wastewater surveillance network spanning more than 100 counties is a significant step toward providing objective, near real-time information on changing drug use patterns across the country,” wrote Douglas Sims, dean of the College of Southern Nevada’s School of Science, Engineering and Mathematics, in an email to the Review-Journal.
Sims, who specializes in similar hands-on research, said that wastewater is the pulse of the community.
“By monitoring it over time, we can see changes in drug use as they happen rather than months after the fact,” he wrote. “That kind of information can save lives.”
Sims holds a doctorate degree from London’s Kingston University.
He led a team of scientists in 2022 who found a higher concentration of party drugs, such as cocaine, MDMA, ketamine and methamphetamine, in the Las Vegas Wash after the annual Electric Daisy Carnival music festival. That same year after the NFL Draft, they found higher remnants of medications that treat high blood pressure and cholesterol.
Data not representative of entire populations
The 100 counties the federal government monitored are home to about 18 percent of the U.S. population, the federal report said.
“Although these analyses are not nationally representative, they are the largest effort to date, making them the most extensive wastewater drug-monitoring initiative in the nation,” the report said.
The federal government also centered its analysis on seven emerging drugs like ketamine and tianeptine, which it described as “gas station heroin.”
All seven drugs were found in the wastewater of just one county — in Delaware. However, Nevada’s Clark and Washoe counties were among the only five where at least six of the seven drugs were detected.
“Counties where at least six drugs were detected may signal broader polysubstance activity, making them important areas for closer monitoring,” the report said.
Important research milestone
Wastewater monitoring emerged after the COVID pandemic.
“One of the greatest strengths of wastewater surveillance is that it measures what a community is actually consuming, not just what is reported,” Sims wrote. “That gives public health officials a much clearer picture of changing drug use patterns and allows emerging threats to be identified much earlier than many traditional surveillance methods.”
It wasn’t clear from where the Nevada samples from the ONDCP report originated. The Las Vegas Valley is home to multiple wastewater treatment plants and waterways.
Although Sims would have preferred seeing additional research materials that expanded on methodology and analytical techniques, he said the ONDCP report was an important milestone for wastewater-centered epidemiology.
“As this monitoring network continues to expand and the dataset grows, I believe it has the potential to become one of the nation’s most valuable public health surveillance tools,” he wrote. “Long-term wastewater monitoring provides an unbiased way to detect emerging drug trends, evaluate the effectiveness of public health interventions, and support evidence-based decision-making.”
Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com.
