Search for “chloramine” on PennLive.com and the only hit returned is yesterday’s article about a woman protesting Pennsylvania American Water’s decision to start putting the chemical in our water.
This isn’t news.
What is news is PAW’s decision. I’ve done the same internet research as this woman protesting, and maybe more as I still have access to McDaniel’s journal subscriptions. Most of the sites are hysterical (not hysterically funny, just hysterical), but what seems to emerge time and time again is that there just isn’t a whole lot of information available about the risks of chloramine.
We know that chloramine creates fewer by-products than chlorine alone — but not what all the remaining by-products do to the human body. We do know that chloramine itself is one of the harmful substances produced when chlorine interacts with organic matter. The EPA doesn’t even pretend to know whether or not chloramine causes cancer. Scientists — not hysterical citizens — have linked chloramine to increased blood lead levels, and anemia.
It is, of course, the responsibility of each citizen to be as informed as she wants to be. We should not, especially these days, rely on the mainstream media to accurately report everything that might be important to us, nor should we necessarily take at face value everything they do report.
But come on, guys — if you thought a woman who did internet research was worth writing an article about, maybe you could break out your notebooks and go talk to the people who actually know something?
Yes, for every chemical added to water — fluoride, chlorine, chloramine or whatever — there are probably 100 or more groups out there warning us about the doom that most certainly will befall us if we dare to drink it. I’m not saying drinking these chemicals is a good thing, but the human body generally can tolerate them at low levels. And drinking water treated with these chemicals probably is better than drinking water contaminated with giardia and E. coli.
Personally, if you have the means, I wouldn’t recommend drinking water straight from the tap anyway, especially if you live in an area known to have less than desirable water. Either get some kind of a filtration system or just go bottled. But even if you don’t have the means (or desire) to take such actions, don’t panic — you’ll probably live through the day if you take a drink.
We do have a filter for our drinking water — although it may just be charcoal, rather than carbon. The more I read, though, the more worried I get about the water I’m showering and bathing in. At least some sources say that’s at least as big a deal, if not bigger. Kids who do a lot of swimming in chlorinated water, for example, are more likely to have asthma. Additionally, much of the hysteria surrounding chloramine has to do with skin rashes and respiratory problems that have coincided with the introduction of chloramine.
So yes, I agree, I’d probably rather be poisoned slowly than die violently of a bacterial infection. Neither sounds all that great to me.
I figure I’ll probably die of liver failure before the chemicals in the water kill me. As far as your showering concerns, there actually are filters for that as well. Here’s a sample of some that are available: http://www.healthgoods.com/Shopping/Water_Quality_Products/Shower_Water_Filter_Systems.asp.