re: The Dirty Little Secret Behind the Chlorine in Your Water

watersquaw — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 15:34:25 GMT

Monochloramine in water has made so many people sick there are citizen groups popping up fighting. 320 people so far who reported respiratory, digestive and/or skin symptoms to my group, People Concerned About Chloramine, since it went in my VT water district in 4/06, and 500+ people who reported the same symptoms to Citizens Concerned in the San Francisco Bay area. Poughkeepsie NY reports same symptoms since they switched to it. There are 2 groups in CA and PA who are fighting to keep chloramine from going into their water.

Chloramine exists as 3 species: mono, di, and trichloramine. Mono is the species they put in water. But the much more toxic di's and tri's can be in there, too, depending on temp (it's worse hotter), pH, aerosolization.

Chloramine in drinking water, hasn't been studied for any of the symptoms people are getting so doctors cannot diagnose their patients.

Chloramine, unlike chlorine, is impossible to get out of one's water, requiring very expensive filters which don't take it all out. And you can't boil or distill it out of water. It takes weeks for it to dissipate from water.

Chloramine is a crappy disinfectant: “Monochloramine is about 2000 and 100 000 times less effective than free chlorine for the inactivation of E.coli and rotaviruses respectively." W.H.O. Guidelines for Drinking Water Quality Vol.2, 1996. Di and trichloramine don't disinfect.

Chloramine's DBPs are MUCH more toxic than THMs and HAAs: HANs, nitrosamines, and found by Dr. Michael Plewa, who says: “The iodoacetic acid is the most toxic and genotoxic DBP in mammalian cells reported in the literature” NONE OF CHLORAMINE'S DBPs are regulated.

For more info: vce.org/chloramine, chloramine.org, www.chloramineinfocenter.net We have heard from MANY people with these symptoms from 20+ states, Canada, Scotland, Australia- so far.

Videos of Vermonters giving symptom reports to EPA and CDC: www.youtube.com/results

re: The Dirty Little Secret Behind the Chlorine in Your Water

douglasenviro — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 23:17:13 GMT

I really appreciate the extra info shared here - especially about showering and bathing, and the other sources of exposure to these dangers. Most people focus completely on the drinking water aspect - but there is no way a Brita, a distiller or an reverse osmosis (RO) water system can protect you from absorption through the skin, or inhalation of the vapours in the home.

All the disinfection is important so we can have water delivered to our homes that's free from bacteria and many other contaminants - but once it is delivered to the home, we NEED to remove the chlorine as well as the dangerous disinfection byproducts. Now the switch to chloramine in most city/municipal water treatment systems is presenting us with a whole new set of problems. Which are worse? Depends who you ask. Funny how governments are always telling us that whatever they are CURRENTLY doing is safe - then they change their opinion years later when they read up on what industry and science has known for years.... <sigh>