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Is our tap water safe?

The tap water in your home probably has several carcinogens in it. I believe these carcinogens are largely the result of your local water authority using chlorine as its primary disinfectant. Over the years, better technology has been developed. Until recently, this technology has been more expensive to use than chlorine, so few systems switched to them. As the technology improved, the prices have dropped sharply and now are equal to or even cheaper than chlorine.

The issue isn’t the chlorine itself, but the compounds that are created, which are known as disinfection by-products (DBP). Many of these complex carcinogens, such as chloroform, have no federal standard at all. Fortunately, there are solutions available that can fix this problem. The use of ozone and/or ultra-violet light to disinfect our water would leave none of the harmful residues behind.

So, what can you do? Besides drinking, you also are exposed to these chemicals when cooking, bathing and showering. Taking a hot shower is worst of all, because heating the residues in the water makes them more likely to be inhaled deeply into your lungs and from there, into your blood stream. The real solution is for the water authority to take on this problem and upgrade our facilities so that our water is improved to the greatest extent possible, that we always have the clean water that we assumed we were getting.

JIM SANDOE

Ephrata

Submitted via email

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