June 10, 2010 Shift to 'chloramines' brings water concerns
By Patrick Anderson Staff Writer
When the Babson drinking water treatment plant reopens this summer after months of state-mandated emergency repair work, it will employ a new chemical disinfectant system intended to prevent a repeat of last year's bacteria crisis.
But a group of residents fear the new chemical disinfectants, called chloramines, could actually make Gloucester drinking water more dangerous.
Citing a body of Internet-posted research and grassroots campaigns across the country to stop the spread of chloramines, the residents, led by local nurse Pat Murphy, are calling for the city to delay the switchover.
"I want the city representatives to know there is another whole side to chloramine in hopes that this can be delayed so that it can be investigated more," Murphy said Thursday. "It is not proven to be safe."
Chloramines are chemical combinations of chlorine and ammonia used to purge bacteria from drinking water throughout the country, including water systems in Dallas, Tampa, Houston, San Francisco and the Boston-area Massachusetts Water Resource Authority.
In New England, 135 communities covering an estimated 3.4 million people use chloramines to disinfect their drinking water, according to the New England Water Works Association, an industry group.
Before the introduction of chloramines, straight chlorine disinfection was the standard treatment process for drinking water, and it's the current chemical used in secondary treatment in Gloucester, Rockport and Manchester.
The advantage of chloramines for water utilities, backers say, is that the chemicals are more stable than straight chlorine and do not bind as easily with organic compounds in water.
When chlorine binds to organic matter, such as sediments, it loses its ability to fight bacteria and also causes "disinfection by-products," such as trihalomethanes, which have been found to be harmful.
This has been a particular problem in Gloucester, which has an antiquated water treatment and delivery system that has struggled for years to keep enough free chlorine in outlying parts of a 120-mile pipe network.
The water emergency last summer, a bacteria bloom that resulted in 20-day boil water order, put the issue front and center.
Insufficient chlorine exacerbated by the Babson plant failure allowed bacteria to grow, which required additional chlorine to be pumped into the system. That, in turn, caused the system to far exceed the allowable levels of trihalomethanes in the water.
When the state Department of Environmental Protection stepped in and mandated the city retrofit its drinking water treatment system to hit a number of new benchmarks, one of the first things to come up was a switch to chloramines.
"They may not have come out and said it in the consent order, but verbally they said we are going to chloramines," said city Public Works Director Michael Hale said. "There are only two methods and chloramines are the only other option."
In the weeks when the state and city were considering how to solve the problems in the water system, Hale said the city laid out a series of options that would have stuck with chlorine, but the state told him "you can't achieve the objectives with other means."
Without increasing the effectiveness of chemical disinfectants, the only other solution would be to remove nearly all of the organic matter in the water — something Hale said would likely require a new water treatment plant and replacement of around 80 miles of 19th century cast-iron pipe.
A new treatment plant alone has been estimated to cost $40 million and replacing the pipe system could cost hundreds of millions and take many years to complete.
Weighing the risks of various chemicals in public drinking water and the risks of not using them is complicated and in the case of chloramines, doubt and the absence of information on the affects of the chemicals is driving the concerns.
While the byproducts resulting from chlorine are closely regulated, as evidenced by the Gloucester violations, the byproducts caused by chloramines are not.
"I have heard they are basing their approach on old information," Murphy said Thursday. "They themselves have said they will be regulating chloramines in coming years. Why not wait until they have done more research."
Murphy began investigating the impacts of chloramines after one of her patients mentioned them.
The most prominent group questioning chloramines is the California-based Citizens Concerned About Chloramine, which has been joined by groups in Pennsylvania and Vermont.
Literature and research pointed to by chloramine skeptics suggests the chemical may corrode pipes, cause skin rashes, kill lab mice, and increase rates of asthma and cancer.
The federal government and state of Massachusetts, however, say chloramines are safe.
"The Environmental Protection Agency believes that water disinfected with monochloramine that meets regulatory standards has no known or anticipated adverse health effects, including skin problems," the federal agency says on its website.
The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection "doesn't have a preference" which disinfectants communities use, spokesman Ed Coletta said Thursday. The best choice, he said, depends on the particular water system.
According to Coletta, the DEP did not require Gloucester to switch to chloramines after the boil order; it only mandated that the city "complete a chemical system evaluation and take a look at alternative disinfectant systems."
The city is required by the state to have the Babson treatment plant ready to run by July 1, and Hale said the city is on target.
If the state doesn't force them, Hale said the city may hold off on turning on Babson and chloramines, until later in the summer, because there is plenty of water in the West Gloucester reservoirs.
Right now, the city has said the only groups who may be affected by the switch are those with kidney dialysis machines and people with fish tanks, both of whom may have to change their equipment.
After Murphy and her group of residents spoke to the Gloucester City Council about their concerns about chloramines, they were invited to return later in the month and brief the council more thoroughly on the matter.
Hale said he does not dismiss the concerns of the residents fearful of chloramines, but trusts the legion of regulators who say chloramines are OK and agrees that for Gloucester there is little alternative.
"Chlorine," Hale said, "is not working."
Patrick Anderson can be reached at 978-283-7000, x3455, or panderson@gloucestertimes.com.
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