Chlorine has been widely added to drinking water for over 100 years. It is absolutely an aggressive oxidant, actually the most aggressive oxidant on the periodic table.
The purpose of having chlorine in drinking water is for the transportation of water through our distribution lines and is used as a disinfection item. There are two problems with this:
- Contaminants like cryptosporidium are chlorine-resistant
- The use of chlorine for disinfection has its own list of bad consequences called disinfection by-products (DBP)
The sad part is that we know chlorine is not good for us. According to U.S. Council of Environmental Quality, the cancer risk to people who drink chlorinated water is 93 percent higher than among those whose water does not contain chlorine.
This research isn’t new. In the early 70’s, scientists at the EPA were already finding that the DBPs of chlorine include trihalomethanes. This led to a series of EPA regulations where they set the maximum contaminant level of things like chloroform, at zero. Why? The US Department of Health and Human Services listed it as a probable carcinogen. So far, so good.
But then our friends with the Chlorine Chemistry Council and the Chemical Manufacturers Association (clearly an unbiased team) challenged this in court and won. That was back in May of 2000.
What we’re really dealing with ties to the underlying way that the Safe Water Drinking Act regulates water. The slow risk that is cancer from DBPs is not the primary objective. The primary risks are the more immediate items relating to pathogens in drinking water. While chlorine isn’t a perfect disinfection agent, it’s going to be in our water.
How can you remove chlorine from your drinking water?
We carry a series of drinking systems ranging from high-capacity filters to the Kinetico K5, far and away the best reverse osmosis system on the planet. Options start as low as $299 for a system that is rated for 99.99% chlorine elimination. That filter is good for 8,000 bottles of chlorine-free water or, put another way, 8,000 pounds of water that you wouldn’t need to lug to and from a store.
You deserve water free of chlorine and don’t need to pay an arm and leg for it. Give us a call at anytime to set up a no-cost water test and plumbing audit or complete the quote form on this page and you’ll be able to schedule an appointment online right now.
