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| Western Hills officials discuss water worries |
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| Written by Jonathan Partridge | Patterson Irrigator | |
| Saturday, 12 July 2008 | |
 Full house: A crowd of more than 150 Diablo Grande residents (top left) fills the clubhouse Thursday as Dwain Sanders (below) and other Western Hills Water District representatives field questions about water quality. Photo by Elias Funez/Patterson Irrigator Nearly 150 Diablo Grande residents showed up to the developing community’s golf course clubhouse to learn how the district is responding to water-quality problems and to share concerns. “It’s a lot easier when we’re all proactive rather than reactive,” said Dwain Sanders, president of the water district and vice president of development for Diablo Grande. “We can yell and scream, but it’s not going to achieve a whole lot.” Trihalomethane troubles The state Department of Health Services fined the district $1,000 on June 20 for exceeding the allowable threshold of trihalomethanes in its water for much of the past few years. Trihalomethanes form when chlorine used to treat water for bacteria and other compounds reacts with natural organic materials in the water. They can lead to cancer and cause liver, kidney and central nervous system problems if consumed over a period of many years, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Studies also have shown that they can cause birth defects. Water district officials said Thursday they would use powdered activated carbon as a temporary fix to meet state water standards for trihalomethanes. Eventually, the district plans to install a chloramine treatment system that would use ammonia to do away with the disinfection byproduct. Designs for that system, estimated to cost $340,000, will be finished by early August, water district representatives said. As of Thursday, officials said trihalomethanes in the water have ranged from 80 parts per billion to 112 ppb during the past three months, water district officials said. The maximum amount allowed by the state is 80 ppb. The district plans to send a water-quality report to residents toward the end of this week showing levels of trihalomethanes and other contaminants that the state monitors. Still, Sanders said he could not say precisely when the district would meet state trihalomethane standards — there are too many unknown factors. “I don’t want to draw a line in the sand,” he said. Making it clear  Dwain Sanders. Photo by Elias Funez/Patterson Irrigator The water district plans to flush pipes to improve water quality. In the long term, officials plan to use a special solution to coat the pipes. Water consultant Patrick Garvey likened that process to seasoning a skillet. Future growth will also help keep water lines from growing stagnant, officials said. Other challenges Water supply will become an issue for Diablo Grande in future years, too, because of increased state and federal regulatory issues, such as pumping restrictions to protect an endangered fish called the Delta smelt, Sanders said. As a result, the district is looking to possibly share water facilities with the city of Patterson and create its own reservoir, among other measures. Also, rates may increase in the not-too-distant future. Diablo Grande’s wastewater is treated by the city of Patterson, which charges the development 1½ times what it charges Patterson residents for sewer hookups, Sanders said. The development pays the city $35.19 per month per sewer hookup, but it charges residents only $25, Sanders said. “The district goes in the hole every month for sewer hookups,” Sanders said. Now, Patterson is looking at raising its rates, so Diablo Grande must do the same, he said. Worries remain Thursday’s meeting followed a Diablo Grande Homeowners Association meeting on June 24, when residents expressed concern about discoloration of the water and fears that it might be the cause of health problems. Some of those worries remained Thursday. Resident Sherry Harris said she has experienced a host of health problems, from heart ailments to gastrointestinal issues, since moving to the development in December. She wondered if the water might be the culprit. “We’ve been drinking the water straight,” she said. Harris said she still had a lot of unanswered questions after Thursday’s meeting. Others felt satisfied with the information they had received. Vince Bogetti said he thought the meeting was “very good.” “From what I can see, everyone is experiencing growing pains,” he said. Sanders agreed that the meeting went “very well.” He said he thought many people did not understand the history of the development before Thursday. Resident Mark Anklam’s sentiments lay somewhere between those two extremes, and he expressed hopes that water-quality problems would get resolved. “They kind of beat around the bush a little bit, but I do think they’re addressing issues,” he said. Comments
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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.
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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. report abuse
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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.
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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 a*sertion 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. report abuse
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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.