Today in Harris County, Texas, residents are refusing to drink their tap water because it has a very strong smell of chlorine as well as sediment, sludge, and biofilm in it. This is an extremely serious and dangerous problem which has gone ignored by Safe Drinking Water Act regulatory professionals across the country for far too long. People report to me daily about violations in their drinking water systems. The process taking place in Harris County is called a Chlorine Burnout. It is not safe… it is in fact extremely dangerous, and to some life threatening. The levels of chlorine used in a burnout produce chloroform which is primarily what you smell, if inhaled in a hot shower or through medical devices (humidifiers, CPAPs or nebulizers) it can cause chemically induced asthma and pneumonia. Drinking Water Utilities will tell you the drinking water meets or exceeds all standards…what they don’t tell you is that they test the water before a burnout and then test the water after a burnout (never during)…quarterly testing is all that is required and some burnouts last as much as 90-days. Irresponsible water utilities are switching to a cheap alternative to chlorine which does not remove harmful organics and dirt from the water supplies. When chlorine mixes with these organics during the Chlorine Burnouts, which would otherwise not be required if the dirt was removed properly, it forms thousands of chemical combinations many of which may cause cancer. There are solutions… tell your utility to clean the dirt out of your drinking water and stop adding ammonia to mask the reactions that lead to the biofouling requiring the burnouts. The Water Utility responded with the following false and misleading Statement: We are aware of the residents concerns. The water has always been safe for human consumption and continues to meet the TCEQ requirements. Since Aug. 4, we have been performing routine maintenance on the system which is required periodically when delivering surface water in large systems. The residents were notified of the routine maintenance through a message on their water bill and by signs posted throughout the district. As part of the process, we have switched disinfectants and have increased our flushing.
Posted on: Wed, 20 Aug 2014 16:57:47 +0000
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