Chlorine in Drinking Water
...Bane or Blessing?

Chlorine in drinking water is one of those things we all have experienced. Think back to the various places you have lived and how chlorinated the water was. How did you try to cover up the chlorine flavor? How badly did you dislike that chlorine taste?

Once our family went to Cairo in Egypt for a week. The chlorine was so powerful that we put spoonfuls of orange flavored Tang into the water to make the drinking of it bearable.

It was only in knowing that the chlorine in drinking water made it safe to drink, that I could be reconciled to drinking it. But when you realize that you are really drinking diluted bleach, how can that be good for you?

The book by Robert Morris entitled The Blue Death recounts the story of cholera and how for centuries it was carried by the water people drank. Cholera was the cause of literally hundreds of thousands of people in many countries and no one knew where it came from or how it spread. Once it was discovered to be in the drinking water and once chlorine was found to be a viable way of killing it and many other infectious bacteria like typhoid, this was hailed as a major advance in medical science and a huge step forward for mankind.

Here's the story of it's use as a disinfectant for drinking water. In 1888 the patent for chlorination was given to Dr. Albert Leeds who was a professor at Stephen's Institute of Technology in New Jersey. The following year it was first used in Adrian, Michigan, to purify their public water. Then in 1908 it was used large scale at the Boonton Reservoir in Jersey City. By the 1940s, chlorine was used throughout the United States to fight bacteria, viruses and other microbes in the drinking water of the country.

A short 20 years later, in the 1960s, questions began to be raised about the safety of chlorine in drinking water. There seemed to be a relationship between chlorination in drinking water and heart disease.

The Bane of Chlorine in Drinking Water

Here's how the dictionary defines "bane": "a thing that ruins or spoils" or "a deadly poison" or "a thing that causes death or destroys life."

It is here that the story of the chlorination of drinking water takes a turn for the worst. It was discovered that chlorine reacts with organic matter already in the water to form toxic chemicals called organochlorines of which there are hundreds. Two of the major groups of organochlorines are haloacetic acids and trihalomethanes (THMs). One of these, which is found in highest concentrations, is a combination of chlorine and methane called chloraform. Global terms used for all of these are "organochlorines" or "chlorine by-products."

Since the 1960s there has been a growing body of evidence that chlorine by-products increase ones chances of heart disease and ones chances of cancer.

In 1992 the American Medical Association published information that stated "nearly 28% of all cancer of the intestines and 18% of all cancer of the bladder were caused by the drinking of chlorinated water."

According to the U.S. Council of Environmental Quality "Cancer risk among people drinking chlorinated water is 93% higher than those whose water does not contain chlorine."

I could go on and on about the link between chlorine by-products and breast cancer or colon cancer or heart attacks and strokes, but I won't. Only to quote the summary statement of Dr. Robert Carlson, a highly respected University of Minnesota researcher who's work is sponsored by the Federal Environmental Protection Agency. He says, "The chlorine problem is similar to that of air pollution," and adds that "chlorine is the greatest crippler and killer of modern times!"

We are left with the dilemma that the disinfectant, chlorine, which was a life saver in ridding our drinking water of waterborne diseases like cholera and typhoid, has, by combining with otherwise innocent organic matter, produced a present epidemic of heart and cancer related disease. What is the solution?

Solving the Dilemma of Chlorine in Drinking Water

In spite of the serious threat of chlorine in our drinking water, it is not likely in the foreseeable future that its use will be discontinued. It is probably here to stay.

We do not use chlorine because it is the only disinfectant that could be used. There are others that are more effective and safer. But we use it because it is the cheapest!

Fortunately, there is a fairly inexpensive solution to this dilemma. Many drinking water filters are extremely effective in removing chlorine from your tap water. A point of use filter for your kitchen will remove the chlorine from your drinking water and make it taste so much better at the same time?

For more information on this and the removal of other contaminants from your water go to Chlorine in Drinking Water.