91ÊÓƵ

The city of Woodburn is looking to use chloramine to disinfect its water supply. The water is apparently purified and safe to drink, but keep finding their way into it. So, harmful? I guess not. But icky. Really icky. If I turned on my tap and got a fountain of flies, I’d call over a specialist to exorcise the demon out of my house.

The solution Woodburn is looking at is . Unlike chlorine, it’s supposed to be able to “inactivate” (RFP wording) midge fly larvae. The EPA for drinking, bathing, cooking whatever. But other groups, like the one in San Francisco who commented on the related Project of the Day, say it is largely untested and causes rashes or worse.

According to the (emphasis mine):

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) states that NO scientific studies on the skin or respiratory effects of chloramine have ever been conducted. Also the cancer studies on chloramine itself are so limited that they cannot be used to determine if chloramine, or any of its disinfection byproducts are carcinogens.

As far as skin and respiratory effects, the showering with chloramine-treated water poses “little risk” to health. Same with its use in humidifiers. But the EPA seems about skin abnormalities reported by people who use chloramine-treated water (The CCAC has ).Ìý±õ³Ù²õ ties most problems to indoor swimming pools. The EPA, on their Web site, cities CDC studies, which were inconclusive.

This is what the EPA has to say about chloramine-related :

• Most of the research on the cancer risk of monochloramine comes from animal studies using mice and rats.
• EPA believes that available data support the use of monochloramine to protect public health.
• EPA’s regulatory standard for chloramines provides a wide margin of safety to offset any uncertainties in risk assessments.

A spokeswoman did point me to , which reads in Part II.A.2 that human carcinogenicity data is “inadequate.” It continues, “Numerous studies have attempted to assess the relationship between drinking water quality and cancer, however, these studies differ greatly in both their objectives and design, thus precluding specific inferences being drawn from their findings.”

I spoke with a couple of EPA spokespeople, but none could answer whether scientific studies on the skin or respiratory effects of chloramine have ever been conducted. They’d have to refer me to headquarters for that.