Chlorine in tap water has a dark side

 

Dear EarthTalk®: I am very concerned about the amount of chlorine in my tap water. I called my water company and they said it is safe just let the tap run for awhile to rid the smell of the chlorine. But that just gets rid of the smell, perhaps, not the chlorine? — Anita Frigo, Milford, CT

 

Thousands of American municipalities add chlorine to their drinking water to get rid of microbes. But this inexpensive and highly effective disinfectant has a dark side.

Bah, chemistry always gets such a bad name.  Like all the BPA shiz - all the experiments were run on people with "higher than normal" exposure levels.  Just another article to freak people out over nothing.

Like Teflon and C8 that gives Parkersburg, West Virginia residents higher incidents to cancer than other areas in the United States? Too bad DuPont is still running away from its fines there.

Like Teflon and C8 that gives Parkersburg, West Virginia residents higher incidents to cancer than other areas in the United States? Too bad DuPont is still running away from its fines there.

 

Living near a chemical plant is one thing.  What I'm saying is all these articles get to the general public, they all take it as doctrine no matter what their exposure levels, and you wind up with a mass crazy freaking out for no reason.

But there are scientific links that BPA isn't healthy at any reasonable level, the same with teflon, and hundreds of other chemicals. While we prospered and advanced our chemical industries in the 20th century, introducing products that seemingly fixed and cured every ailment or difficulty, we must reexamine and evaluate our usage and consumption of these products because we are becoming more aware of the potential side effects. Remember a time when lead was used in household paints, but its eventual ban was fought by the paint companies? Or when lead was used in gasoline, but fought by the petroleum industry? Or even asbestos, which was declared unsafe to breathe in at any level in the 1930s, but not officially linked to cancer-causing agents until the late 1960s due to corporate interests?

 

Then we have the Bhopal disaster, which killed over 35,000... we still don't know for sure what we are really doing to our bodies long-term.

Oh for god's sake, whether it's chlorinated water, a runaway bus, an axe murderer, a blocked artery, or an exploded liver, *something* at *some* point is going to make all of us drop dead and become worm fodder.

Well, that is to say there are great alternatives to chlorinated water. A water filter (on a tap, even) removes the chlorine and gives the water a clean, fresh taste. The same effect can be had for putting water in the fridge and letting it sit for a few hours so that the gases escape. Bottled water? Not such much, as most come from municipal sources.

Even pure water can kill you if you drink too much of it......  Food can kill you if you eat too much of it.....  No one will ever be able to convince me that the mass media hype casued by instances of extreme exposure or "what-if" circumstances is actually necessary.

 

Remember the hotel in Miami that had the super-duper water filter that resulted in bacteria growing in their system and actually killing people?  Yeah, those chemicals are in there for a reason.

 

  Compare the effects of clorine to the effects of unclorinated water. You don't hear of very many people dying of typhoid anymore, although it was common two centuries ago. I think the benefits of chlorine outweigh the disbenefits.

There are other, safer methods of cleaning water, one of which is mentioned in the article.

 

  Maybe, but do they provide the residual disinfection that chlorine does? The principal benefit of chlorine is that it can be placed in the water at a water treatment plant and still be active 30 days later.

 

  If you were a plant manager, would you depend on your customers to treat their own water at the tap? If typhoid breaks out, you are going to get blamed for not adding chlorine.

 

  The sad thing is that only 4% of drinking water is actually used for drinking. Half of it gets flushed down the toilet. I think this will change in the future, since 8% of our energy use is for moving water and wastewater.

 

 

I'm surprised we are not giving incentives for consumers and businesses to install water-less toilets...

My hometown of Saginaw dumps so much chlorine in the water.  Taking a shower makes the bathroom smell like a swimming pool and the water does have a noticeable taste. 

 

 

"I'm surprised we are not giving incentives for consumers and businesses to install water-less toilets..."

 

  Here's the problem. Water-less toilets would save a lot of water. So would low flow shower heads, high efficiency clothes washers, planting of landscaping that doen't require a lot of water, etc. All of these improvements, on the surface, look like they would reduce water use, which in turn will also reduce energy use.

 

  However, most water and wastewater utilities charge by the volume of water used. If you use more water, you pay more money. Many utilities meter the water used directly, and they base the wastewater charge on the amount of water used.

 

    Using less water will result in less revenue to the water and wastewater utility. Unfortunately, the costs are NOT proportional to the volume of water used. So, if water use drops, revenue drops, but costs do not drop as much, if at all. One of the reasons for this is that water systems are usually designed to do to things: provide water for domestic use, and provide water for fighting fires. For a fire, you need a large volume of water really fast. Therefore, the system must be designed to convey a large amount of water. Using less domestic water by conservation does not change the need for fire protection.