What happens to naked DNA in the environment?

[ola Myklebost, PhD]

One of the newspapers here has got in touch with a "nonconformist" 
scientist and are trying to dramatize the risk of pouring DNA down 
the drain. (The headline was "May become as bad as Chernobyl"!!, 
actually the scientist had said "..  worse than Chernobyl")

Clearly, DNA will generally be degraded immediately in sewage, which 
is a medium "well designed" (selected) for metabolizing DNA and 
other biomolecules. Similarly, naked DNA released into the 
environment will have the same fate. 

However, can someone please point me to any research into this 
matter? I have searched through medline with keywors like nucleic 
acid and environment but didn't find a lot.

Please respond by mail.