Manchester About to Change What's in the Water

listen:

(begin with ambient sound of water works)

Track 1: Manchester Water Works is gearing up for a big change.

In August the process for disinfecting tap water will go from chlorination to chloramination.

Chloramines come from mixing chlorine and small amounts of ammonia.

Water Works Administrator Dave Paris says the new treatment will make the drinking water safer and better-tasting.

"….. Because of it’s low activity, low oxidative power, it does not react with everything it sees. It is a disinfectant, still kills microbes like typhoid and cholera, maintains purity of the water. But it does not evaporate out of the water.”

Track 2: And that, says Paris, is one of the down sides to chloramines.

If untreated, the chemical in the water can be toxic to fish and amphibians.

It can also be harmful to patients in the process of kidney dialysis.

And because the new chemical doesn’t dissipate like chlorine, it can also cause the lead to leach out of old water pipes.

For all those reasons, Manchester resident Darlene DeSilva is concerned.

And she's also angry that the conversion is going ahead without any public input.

So DeSilva's decided to go door-to-door, alerting people of what she says are the potential dangers of chloramines:

“There are no long-term effects on choramines. The little that they do know about chloramines is that is fatal to fish and amphibians. They also know that it is a very tight-bonded chemical that does not dissipate like chlorine does. Chlorine can dissipate into the air.”

Track 3: But the change isn’t just being made on a whim.

Water Works must meet the new federal guidelines mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The reason for the switch, says the EPA’s Jennifer McLain, is that chloramines disinfect water without creating the same level of chemical byproducts, or DBPs, that chlorine does.

“The health effects that have been associated with disinfectant byproducts are cancers and there are some links that have been made between different reproductive and developmental health effects and chlorine…some of these, such as miscarriage and birth defects. And this chloramines change is to lower the levels of DBPs that would be associated with those health effects.”

However, Dr. Michael Plewa – Genetic Toxicologist at the University of Illinois doesn’t necessarily agree with that.

Plewa warns that, while chloramines reduce the total level of known disinfectant byproducts – DBPs - they can generate a host of new emerging ones.

And some of them, he says, could be even more toxic than those generated by chlorine.

“The question is: when you switch from chlorine to chloramines, can you guarantee that you are producing water with lower toxic risk. And I don’t think that information is out there. I don’t believe that you can state with certainty that chloramines are going to produce drinking water that is safer than chlorine…and in fact may produce water that has a higher toxic risk, because of the generation of new classes and different distributions of drinking water disinfection byproducts.”

For this reason, Plewa argues that the EPA should put more time and money into the study of emerging DBPs and water disinfected by chloramines.

Dr. John Bucker is a toxicologist with the National Insititute of Health And Environmental Sciences.

He was among those who conducted four clinical tests of chlorinated and chloraminated water in laboratory animals.

He says the studies showed little to no evidence of cancer in the rodents.

HOWEVER, he adds the results are not that black and white.

“It’s not necessarily what you use to chlorinate the water, it’s the chemistry that that goes on in the water as it’s being delivered through the distribution systems. What you get is a lot of disinfectant byproducts, depending on how much organic material is in the pipes or the in the water supply that goes into the purification system… .”

Many agree that the jury is still out on the amount and the toxicity of DBPs generated by chloramination disinfection.

That’s why Darlene DeSilva is so worried.

“I do understand the huge responsibility that Manchester Water Works has to make sure our water supply is free of certain bacteria and viruses…but equally as important to be considered is the short and long term effects on the public’s health in using these chemicals to treat our water. Is there a safer alternative?”

(bring in amb sound of fish store)

In the neighboring town of Hooksett, Heidi Hannaman manages the Family Pet Store.

She’s not one bit worried about chloramines, even though the additive is harmful to pet fish and reptiles.

She says Manchester Water Works has done a great job getting word out about how to treat chloraminated water to protect pets.

“Paperwork for us to post in the store and hand out to customers, which we have, and it tells you about the products they’re using. And they give you some instructions on what you can do. They basically tell you to go to a pet shop and talk about the aquarium plans…and what to do about it.”

Another unwelcome side-effect of chloramines has to do with lead leaching.

In Washington DC, a change to Chloramines caused a huge spike in lead levels in the water.

The chemical reacted with antiquated pipes, causing toxic levels of lead in some Washington drinking water.

Not to worry, says Water Works’ Dave Paris.

Manchester does not have any lead service lines.

But what about the pipes in some of the city’s older homes?

Paris says lead levels will be closely monitored.

“There’s no question that we need to watch very closely the lead levels in Manchester…but we really….we feel we’re in pretty good shape, and we will be doing a full lead survey in August.”

For those residents who may be worried about the changes and want to remove Chloramines from their drinking water, Paris says the answer is: activated carbon water filtration systems.
When Manchester switches, it will certainly not be the first. The EPA says hundreds of communities across the country have already switched to chloramines, including Concord, NH and several others in New England.

For NHPR News, I’m DD in Manchester