Comments for Western Hills officials discuss water worries at http://pattersonirrigator.com , comment 1 to 3 out of 3 comments http://pattersonirrigator.com Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:08:16 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://pattersonirrigator.com/content/view/1805/43/#comment-784 Mark Anklam has it partly right when he says, "They kind of beat around the bush a little bit, but I do think they're addressing issues." I am a member of the group, Citizens Concerned About Chloramine,(CCAC), which was formed after the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission decided to follow other water districts in putting ammonia into the pristine Hetch Hetchy water to form chloramine without making sure that it had been tested for safety when used by humans. To this day, no tests have been done on chloramine to see what it does to human beings when we drink it , shower in it, or breathe it. Immediately after the introduction of chloramine to our water, many people began to have adverse symptoms. We eventually determined that our symptoms were caused by the water and CCAC was formed to ask the SFPUC, Department of Public Health, and federal EPA for help in finding an alternative way to disinfect the water. CCAC has heard officially from over 500 people on the SF Peninsula and many hundreds more across the US, Scotland, Australia and Italy. From the numbers of people we talk to informally, there could be as many as 30% of the population that is affected. We have never said that water should not be disinfected. Instead of cooperation,we get the circular reasoning given by Paul, whom I suspect works for the EPA. We have been asking for human health studies to be done since 2004 but the SFPUC, SFDPH, and EPA refuse to do them. Chloramine is known to cause serious health effects in industry. See the Hazardous Substance Fact Sheet published by the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services. No one has done any tests to prove that these symptoms (which, by the way are the ones being experienced by people exposed to chloraminated water) will not occur at a lower dosage level. Space here does not allow me to list all of the Scientific studies showing the byproducts of chloramine are much worse than those produced by chlorine and that the byproducts of chlorine, which the EPA is "protecting us from" are not as problematic as they want you to believe. You can see these documents, a study by Dr. Richard Bull in which his mice died of pulmonary edema after they "swam" in chloraminated water on www.chloramine.org and www.vce.org/chloramine. Please look behind the circular reasoning - people can't be having symptoms because no tests have been done to show that chloramine causes these symptoms - ask for the tests to be done. The assertion that no health effects issues have been encountered is also suspect. Water departments and health departments have been telling people for years that their symptoms can't be caused by chloramine. (Divide and conquer)They have not been taking these complaints seriously, so people have been trying to deal with their symptoms on their own. Paul has no scientific proof that chloramine does not cause the symptoms we are experiencing. I don't agree that telling people about the symptoms we are experiencing, and some people are experiencing very acute symptoms that go away when they are using non-chloraminated water, is fear mongering. So yes, they beat around the bush a lot and do not address the issues. - Linda Corwin Sun, 27 Jul 2008 12:00:02 +0100 http://pattersonirrigator.com/content/view/1805/43/#comment-723 The folks that claim to be sensitive to chloramine are certainly in the minority so much so that one has to wonder about the claims...non of which are scientifically supported. Unfortunately fear mongering remains an effective tool for those that lack real evidence - notice the comments do not cite any specific study just a generalized claim. Chloramines have been widely used thorughout the world for many years without helath effects issues. When one starts to consider the alternatives to disinfecting water you are severly limited by law - you can use chlorine which we know can produce (depending on the source water) levels of disinfection by-products that exceed state standards, or you can use chloramines which is really chlorine coupled with ammonia that produces a long lived disinfectant residual but does not produce disinfection byproducts to the extent that chlorine does. Other primary disinfection methods exist such as Ozonation, chlorine dioxide, UV light, but are very expensive and so short lived that you must employ another method of disinfection to ensure a longer life disinfectant residual once the water leaves the treatment plant. Water must be disinfected or it is not safe to drink. - Paul Wed, 16 Jul 2008 07:45:11 +0100 http://pattersonirrigator.com/content/view/1805/43/#comment-715 I live in the first and only water district in VT to switch from chlorine to chloramine. It went into our water in 4/06. I discovered that I get a chemical reaction from any exposure to chloramine in the water. A citizens group, People Concerned About Chloramine, started in 5/06. Today we have 286 reports to us of people suffering symptoms since the switch to chloramine. Chloramine has it's own "compounds [that] react with natural organic materials in the water." NONE of them are regulated, meaning no municipal water treatment facility using chloramine is required to test for them. Emerging science shows some of chloramine's recently discovered "compounds" are much more toxic than trihalomethanes. Other water systems in the U.S. are using safer non-toxic ways to deal with trihalomethanes. You can’t boil, or distil chloramine out of the water like you can chlorine. There is no filter that removes all the chloramine. Go here for more information: www.vce.org/chloramine. There’s also a group in San Francisco who have 500 symptom reports, with the same symptoms we have. www.chloramine.org. We are working with citizens in other states who are reporting the same symptoms, too. - Ellen Powell Sun, 13 Jul 2008 07:18:44 +0100