Is Chlorine in Your Drinking Water Ruining Your Health?
You wouldn't think that chlorine could ruin your health or maybe just affect it in some bad way. After all, chlorine kills harmful bacteria. That is true but that is not all it does to your home drinking water.
The chlorine in the water of your home can be harmful. It is there to protect you from waterborne illnesses, but sometimes the solution to one problem is the cause of another.
Numerous diseases can be transmitted via the public water supply. We often think of things like dysentery and cholera when we think about waterborne illnesses, but serious diseases like polio and Legionnaire's disease can be transmitted from one person to another through the drinking water.
Chlorine is very effective at killing bacteria, viruses and parasites. Only the cysts of parasites called cryptosporidium are immune to the effects of chlorine. Cysts are a larva like stage of development. They are a little larger than a micron in size. So, they are invisible.
A Little History
Even before people understood about how germs cause disease, they understood that drinking plain water could make them ill. They typically chose teas, wines or beer to drink, rather than water for that reason. Unless they had access to a bubbling spring, they stayed away from the water.
The first recorded use of chlorine to clean a water supply was in 1850 during an outbreak of cholera in London. Officials did not understand about germs, but they knew that chlorine would get rid of odors and break up "putrid mater".
The germ theory of disease was introduced and became accepted in the late 19th century. Doctors knew that plagues and communicable diseases could be spread via the water supply.
Boiling water had always been a solution for killing germs, although people didn't know it. The teas that they drank were safer, because they boiled the water first.
The US Army needed a solution other than boiling for disinfecting water in the field. They needed disinfected water not just for drinking, but also for cleaning wounds. Sometimes a source of heat was not available.
In 1910, Major William Lyster, who later became a colonel, developed the Lyster bag. The bag contained calcium hypochlorite, which is basically powdered bleach. Hypochlorite is mostly chlorine. The Lyster bag was used by US ground forces for many decades.
At about the same time, Major Carl Darnall developed a water disinfection technique that made use of liquefied chlorine gas. By 1918, the US Department of Treasury had ordered that all public drinking supplies be disinfected with chlorine.
Darnall's work is the basis for the chlorination systems used today. Things have changed over the years. Facilities have other purification methods, such as UV, but chlorine is still the accepted standard for public treatment facilities, even though the health risks of chlorine exposure are well known.
Chlorine is a skin, eye and respiratory irritant. When it kills bacteria and other germs, byproducts like THMs are formed. THMs and other disinfection byproducts are known to cause cancer, but according to the World Health Organization, the health risks associated with disinfection by products are minor when compared to the risks of "inadequate disinfection".
Luckily, homeowners do not have to put up with any of the health risks. We do not have to risk exposure to illness-causing germs, even those cysts that are not killed by chlorination.
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The chlorine in the water of your home can be harmful. It is there to protect you from waterborne illnesses, but sometimes the solution to one problem is the cause of another.
- A Little Science
Numerous diseases can be transmitted via the public water supply. We often think of things like dysentery and cholera when we think about waterborne illnesses, but serious diseases like polio and Legionnaire's disease can be transmitted from one person to another through the drinking water.
Chlorine is very effective at killing bacteria, viruses and parasites. Only the cysts of parasites called cryptosporidium are immune to the effects of chlorine. Cysts are a larva like stage of development. They are a little larger than a micron in size. So, they are invisible.
A Little History
Even before people understood about how germs cause disease, they understood that drinking plain water could make them ill. They typically chose teas, wines or beer to drink, rather than water for that reason. Unless they had access to a bubbling spring, they stayed away from the water.
The first recorded use of chlorine to clean a water supply was in 1850 during an outbreak of cholera in London. Officials did not understand about germs, but they knew that chlorine would get rid of odors and break up "putrid mater".
The germ theory of disease was introduced and became accepted in the late 19th century. Doctors knew that plagues and communicable diseases could be spread via the water supply.
Boiling water had always been a solution for killing germs, although people didn't know it. The teas that they drank were safer, because they boiled the water first.
The US Army needed a solution other than boiling for disinfecting water in the field. They needed disinfected water not just for drinking, but also for cleaning wounds. Sometimes a source of heat was not available.
In 1910, Major William Lyster, who later became a colonel, developed the Lyster bag. The bag contained calcium hypochlorite, which is basically powdered bleach. Hypochlorite is mostly chlorine. The Lyster bag was used by US ground forces for many decades.
At about the same time, Major Carl Darnall developed a water disinfection technique that made use of liquefied chlorine gas. By 1918, the US Department of Treasury had ordered that all public drinking supplies be disinfected with chlorine.
- The Current State of Affairs
Darnall's work is the basis for the chlorination systems used today. Things have changed over the years. Facilities have other purification methods, such as UV, but chlorine is still the accepted standard for public treatment facilities, even though the health risks of chlorine exposure are well known.
Chlorine is a skin, eye and respiratory irritant. When it kills bacteria and other germs, byproducts like THMs are formed. THMs and other disinfection byproducts are known to cause cancer, but according to the World Health Organization, the health risks associated with disinfection by products are minor when compared to the risks of "inadequate disinfection".
- The Ultimate Solution
Luckily, homeowners do not have to put up with any of the health risks. We do not have to risk exposure to illness-causing germs, even those cysts that are not killed by chlorination.
- We do not have to put up with the taste or smell of chlorine, nor do we have to buy bottled water. It is possible to remove chlorine from the water of your home, easily and safely. You'll learn how to do that in my next article. Please see the resource box below for more information.
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