This weekend I read in the paper an article called, “How safe is the water in that swimming pool?” Amongst other things that can live in swimming pool water such as cryptosporidum there was also a mention 1 in 5 people admitting to peeing in a pool. Note that they used the word “admitting.” I’d say it’s more like 3 out 5 people have peed in a pool, but two of them won’t admit it. Now where it gets interesting is when you get into the chemistry of urine & chlorinated water. They mention that when the two combine they form the chemical chloramine which is a mixture of chlorine and ammonia. They mentioned that this can irritate your eyes and respiratory system. What they didn’t mention is that in San Francisco, chloramine has replaced chlorine in our water supply because it doesn’t break down easily.
A glass of chlorinated water left to sit out overnight will be chlorine free pretty much. Chloramine on the other hand doesn’t break down and is more effective in killing bacteria in drinking water. Water with Chloramine in it will still have it in for weeks. I know this because I’m what you’d call a fish geek. Tropical fish like humans, don’t like chlorine in their water and we used to use a simple cheap solution called de-chlor when we changed the water in our fish tanks. Chloramine on the other hand needs a more effective chemical combination commonly sold as Amquel. But I use a Brita Water filter or drink bottled water! So you say. What about when you turn your face into the current of that refreshing morning shower? There’s no filtration there. Now I think I have an answer that none of my doctor’s could figure out as to why I have constantly red eyes and a runny nose. It’s the chloramine in my water that could be causing the problems. Now I have to look into carbon filters for my home shower.
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You are by no means the only person with symptoms from your chloraminated tap water- and your particular symptoms are very common ones. I and 320 other people in my VT water district do, too. We’re fighting it here as a citizens group called “People Concerned About Chloramine”, which is a satellite group of the San Francisco Bay area’s “Citizens Concerned About Chloramine” (CCAC). Check out CCAC’s website: choramine.org. 500+ people have reported the same symptoms to CCAC that we have in VT- and, with both of our websites up and running, we hear from people all over the U.S. with the same symptoms. Symptoms basically fall into 3 categories: respiratory, skin and digestive. You can find a detailed list of chloraminated tap water-caused symptoms on CCAC’s website as well as a lot of information. And if anyone from our neck of the woods reads this post, you can also check out our website: vce.org/chloramine.
By the way, there are no shower filters that will remove chloramine. They do great with chlorine, sadly not with chloramine. Filtering in general with chloramine is a serious losing battle.