Joe Levi:
a cross-discipline, multi-dimensional problem solver who thinks outside the box – but within reality™

100th anniversary of "Clean Water"

I’m not a fan of adding man-made chemicals to anything, especially not anything a person would normally consume internally, but in the case of drinking water, the last 100 years have shown us that doing so can have very positive effects.

Drinking water chlorination has helped to virtually eliminate waterborne diseases such as cholera and typhoid fever, and has played a major role in increasing Americans’ life expectancy from 47 years in 1900 to 78 years in 2006.

September 26th is what American Chemistry is calling the “100th anniversary of clean water” (http://www.americanchemistry.com/100years/).

Some interesting tidbits chlorination:

  1. about 100 years ago, Jersey City became the first U.S. city to routinely chlorinate municipal drinking water supplies.  Over the next decade, more than a thousand U.S. cities adopted chlorination, helping to dramatically reduce infectious diseases.
  2. The U.S. Center for Disease Control calls drinking water chlorination “one of the most significant public health advances in US history.” In 1997, LIFE magazine hailed the filtration and chlorination of drinking water as “probably the most significant public health advancement of the millennium.”
  3. Where piped water supplies are not available, simple techniques to disinfect and safely store water in individual households can dramatically reduce waterborne disease.  A recent study by the World Health Organization (WHO) found that household-based chlorination is the most cost-effective way to reduce these waterborne illnesses.
  4. According to the WHO 1.1 billion people do not have access to safe drinking water.  Unsafe water and inadequate sanitation kills nearly two million people each year, mostly children under the age of five.

Chlorine is inherently bad for life; if you ingest, inhale, consume, or are in other ways exposed to too much of the stuff it will make you sick or may even kill you. Sufficiently diluted it only has this effect on smaller organisms (such as microbes and house plants).

To keep from making your house plants “sick” from the chlorine, experts advise filling your watering can with tap water the night before you intend to water your plants.

If you don’t like the “taste” of chlorinated water you can let a pitcher of water stand out overnight.

Doing so allows sufficient time for the chlorine in the water to evaporate.

It’s important to realize, chlorination is in tended to make the drinking water safe from the delivery system to your house. Once the water is at your house it’s usually okay to de-chlorinate your water (unless your have very old or very dirty pipes). The U.S. EPA has good information on various home water treatment products that may be used remove contaminants found in tap water (http://www.epa.gov/OGWDW/faq/pdfs/fs_healthseries_filtration.pdf) but they stop short of recommending de-chlorination. The EPA notes that as long as tap water meets “federal standards,” the water is considered safe to drink for healthy people.

You should be aware that some web sites and companies use scare tactics and misleading information to try to sell home treatment products. Don’t fall into that category of people. Do your research and decide for yourself.

The EPA says the amount of chlorine used to kill germs and microbes in drinking water is “safe” for healthy people, but once it gets to your house, it’s already done its job and in usually safe to remove.

Shower and bath filters are available that remove chlorine in bath water. Benefits have been reported to include less-dryness in the skin and hair, and reduced tendencies to “itch” throughout the day.

Most water filtration systems DO NOT remove chlorine or fluorine in the water, so a supplemental filter should be added if you wish to filter these chemicals.

You can also obtain a whole-house de-chlorination filter to remove chlorine for all purposes.

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1 Response

  1. Randall Thomas says:

    Hey, Joe – thanks for your comments regarding the positive uses of chlorine when it comes to drinking water. I’ve done some work for the ACC, and they’re really proud to celebrate a century of chlorine…appreciate the post.

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