Do You Drink Polk City Water Unfiltered?

In addition to drinking the water unfiltered, do you shower or bathe with it, or cook with it?  I am now questioning how safe this is.  I was working on my pool and got the idea to use my same chlorine test kit I use for my pool to test the chlorine levels in the tap water.  Over the last several months, my neighbors and I have noticed on occasion, a strong chlorine odor coming from the tap water.  I didn't notice the smell very recently, so it was probably not as high as it has been once in a while in the past, but I wanted to see what the test said anyway.  I was totally shocked by my results!

February 28, 2011 Tap Water Sample

March 7, 2011 Tap Water Sample

Here is a picture of a sample I took out of the tap the morning of 2/28/2011.  The ideal range for a swimming pool, as you can see in the picture, is between 1.0 - 3.4 parts per million, or ppm.  This test result is clearly falling on the high end of the next higher level of 3.0-6.5 parts per million.

Shortly after getting these results, I contacted Acting City Manger/Vice Mayor Block who lives in my neighborhood.  At first, she was hesitant to do anything about it on a Sunday, but after further discussion, she offered to contact Mr. Frank Sanderson from Utilities to look into the situation.  A little later that evening, Mrs. Block and a representative from Woodard & Curran performed a water test on the tap water in front of me, as well as explained some information about how Woodard & Curran tests for Chlorine in the drinking water.  The test they did tested for FREE Chlorine in the water.  The result was 1.75 parts per million.  The tester for the pool tests TOTAL Chlorine.  Free chlorine is the chlorine that is still "active" in the water ready to kill any pathogens or bacteria.  When this amount of Free chlorine is added to the chlorine that is already "used up" by pathogens or bacteria, this will give you Total chlorine level.  The representative stated that they do test the Total chlorine level of the water coming out of the wastewater treatment plants before dispursing it on the sprayfields, etc., but they do not test for Total Chlorine levels in the drinking water, only Free chlorine levels.  He said the maximum contamination level of Free chlorine in the drinking water can be as high as 4.0.  Upon checking with the EPA website, I found that this statement was not correct.  The EPA states the Chlorine MRDL (Maximum Residual Disinfectant Level) = 4.0.  This means that the TOTAL chlorine level, NOT only the Free chlorine portion of the equation should not exceed 4.0 PPM.

A few months ago when the the chlorine smell from the tap water was quite obvious, one of my neighbors told me that she could not drink even one glass of tap water without experiencing stomach problems. Her pets, a bird and small dog, were also violently ill until she changed them to bottled water.  I had mentioned this to Mrs. Block when I told her of my test results.  Since 2/28, I found out that Mrs. Block informed this neighbor that the water department recently did some tests on the water and realized that the chlorine levels were on the high side, and they have since been lowered.  That same courtesy extended to myself would have been nice, considering I was the one who brought the issue to her attention!  With this new information, I did retest the water on March 7th, 2011.  The test did reveal that the chlorine levels do appear to be closer to the "normal" range.  You may not be able to see the subtle difference in the photographs above, but this more recent test is closer in color to the 1.5-3.4 range than the higher 3.0-6.5 range.  Let's hope closer montitoring of chlorine levels will continue, and will not just be a one time extra check since the public made them aware of this problem.

I realize that chlorine used as a disinfecting agent in our water does have it's purpose to keep other pathogens and bacteria under control, but it should be used only at the recommended levels deemed safe for consumption.  Besides the adverse health effects of excessive chlorine levels listed on the EPA's website, eye/nose irritation & stomach discomfort, other websites also site other adverse health effects.  Many external ones you may already be familiar with if you have ever swam in a pool with excessive chlorine levels, dry itchy skin, rashes, and lightening of hair, even getting slight green coloration in the hair.  Internally, long term exposure to elevated chlorine levels have shown to cause much more serious health problems such as increased cancer rates of many types of cancer, but specifically colon and bladder cancers.  Inhaling chlorine in vapor form or absorbing it through the skin, such as while taking a hot shower, has been shown to significantly increase lung irritation in individuals with respiratory conditions, such as asthma.  The by-products of chlorine disinfection processes are also linked to various health problems.

I am not telling you these things to scare you, merely to make you aware so you can make informed decisions about your drinking water.  Most types of water filters, such as the ones built into many refridgerators, remove clorine from drinking water.  Please keep in mind that most filters must be replaced regularly or require maintenance, most on a six month to annual basis to keep them working properly. Here is a link to www.WaterFilterComparisons.com  This will give you a good idea of what types of filters and even which brands work well to remove various chemicals and contaminants from your water.  Price is not always the best indicator of best quality.  We are not recommending any particular products or even saying that they are necessary.  We just believe that knowledge is power and if you are informed, you can make the decisions you feel are best for you, instead of trusting blindly that someone else is always looking out for our best interests.

The EPA requires that municipalities and other water companies provide what they call a Consumer Confidence Report to the public on an annual basis.  This way the public can be informed of various contaminants in their tap water.  On Polk City's web site, the Water Department Page contains a link to this report.  Unfortunately, at the time of this article, the most current one I could find there was dated 2007.  There are some obvious shortcomings that need to be worked on by Polk City.