Chlorine in Drinking Water – Bane or Blessing?

Chlorine in drinking water is one of those things that we have all experienced. Think about the various places you have lived and how chlorinated the water was. How did you try to cover up the chlorine taste? How bad 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 in the water to make the drink bearable.

It was only knowing that the chlorine in drinking water made it safe to drink, that I was able to reconcile myself to drinking it. But when you realize you’re actually drinking diluted bleach, how can that be good for you?

The blessing of chlorine in drinking water

Robert Morris’s book entitled the blue death tells 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 found to be in drinking water and once chlorine was found to be a viable way to kill it and many other infectious bacteria such as typhoid, this was hailed as a breakthrough in medical science and a great step forward for humanity.

Let me tell you the story of its use as a disinfectant for drinking water. In 1888, the patent for chlorination was awarded to Dr. Albert Leeds, who was a professor at the Stephen Institute of Technology in New Jersey. The following year it was used for the first time in Adrian, Michigan, to purify public water. Then in 1908 it was used on a large scale at Boonton Reservoir in Jersey City. In the 1940s, chlorine was used throughout the United States to combat bacteria, viruses, and other microbes in the country’s drinking water.

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

The curse of chlorine in drinking water

This is how the dictionary defines “bane”: “a thing that ruins or mars” or “a deadly poison” or “a thing that causes death or destroys life.”

This is where the story of drinking water chlorination takes a turn for the worse. Chlorine was found to react with organic matter already in the water to form toxic chemicals called organochlorines, of which there are hundreds. Two of the main groups of organochlorines are haloacetic acids and trihalomethanes (THMs). One of these, found in the highest concentrations, is a combination of chlorine and methane called chloroform. The umbrella 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 byproducts increase the chances of heart disease and cancer.

In 1992, the American Medical Association released information stating that “nearly 28% of all bowel cancers and 18% of all bladder cancers were caused by drinking chlorinated water.”

According to the US Council on Environmental Quality, “the risk of cancer among people who drink chlorinated water is 93% higher than those whose water does not contain chlorine.”

I could go on and on about the link between chlorine byproducts and breast cancer or colon cancer or heart attacks and strokes, but I won’t. Just to quote the summary statement of Dr. Robert Carlson, a highly respected researcher at the University of Minnesota whose work is sponsored by the Federal Environmental Protection Agency. He says, “The problem of chlorine is similar to that of air pollution”, adding that “chlorine is the biggest crippler and killer of modern times!”

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

Solving the Dilemma of Chlorine in Drinking Water

Despite the serious threat of chlorine in our drinking water, its use is unlikely to be discontinued in the foreseeable future. It’s 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 at removing chlorine from tap water. Will a point-of-use filter for your kitchen remove chlorine from your drinking water and make it taste a lot better at the same time?