Chloramine went into our water in Vermont in 4/06 and life has been horrible as a result for many people in our water district. There are three species of chloramine that can be more or less present, depending on conditions like water temperature, pH, aerosolization of the water, and chlorine to ammonia ratio. They are monochloramine, dichloramine, and trichloramine. All are irritants and each one is more irritating than the one before it.

Symptoms being experienced here since the switch to chloramines (nearly 300 people now reporting problems): Skin: dry, red, burning, inflamed, itchy skin or rashes. Cracked and bleeding skin, welts and open sores. Respiratory: sinus congestion, runny nose, sneezing, coughing, wheezing, and even full-blown asthma-like reactions. Digestive: dry mouth, dry/swollen throat, acid reflux, irritable bowel-like symptoms. Eyes: dry, burning, tearing, stinging, blurry vision.

Othings to consider about chloramine:

*The World Health Organization (WHO) says that chloramine is about 2,000 and 100,000 times less effective than chloramine at the inactivation of e.Coli and rotaviruses respectively. It takes 25x as much chloramine as chlorine to kill pathogens in the water as fast as chlorine does.

*There are no human or animal studies on the skin or respiratory effects of chloraminated water, or on the health effects of chloramine, in general. Doctors cannot diagnose chloramine-related symptoms. They are completely at a loss to help their patients -even if it did occur to them that a chemical in the tap water might be what is causing the problems their patients experience.

*Chloramine is much more corrosive to indoor plumbing (as well as to our bodies) than chlorine, and can leach lead into the water from PVC and copper pipes, “lead-free” brass fittings and lead solder. Chloraminated tap water corrodes rubber toilet flappers and gaskets very quickly. It also can cause pin-holing in copper pipes. Water districts commonly add phosphates to the water as a “corrosion inhibitor” to coat the pipes with, and keep lead from leaching into the water. Phosphates are food for microorganisms and bacteria, and can increase in numbers within the distribution pipes and the pipes in our homes. So, chloramine, the inferior disinfectant, now has an even bigger problem trying to keep the water free of bacteria and organisms.

*You cannot boil or distill chloramine out of water like you can chlorine. And if you put a bowl of chloraminated water on the counter, the chloramine will take weeks to dissipate out of the water. Chlorine dissipates in a couple of hours. No carbon filter completely removes chloramine, like a Brita or Pur filter, for instance. Only LOTS of carbon and reverse osmosis will get the job done- VERY expensive, extremely wasteful, and only good for cold water.

We know of people from all over the U.S, and Scotland who are suffering from the same symptoms that we are since chloramine went into their municipal water: Los Angeles, San Diego, NY, FL, TX, CO, LA, ME, NH, OH, MA, KS, GA, OK, VA, Washington DC, KY, MO, and Scotland. We are working with citizen groups who are concerned about chloramine in NY, PA, and CA. Visit our websites and get educated. Maybe you can stop them from switching to chloramine where you live. http://www.chloramine.org, http://vce.org/chloramine.html, http://www.chloramineinfocenter.net

And if chloramine comes into your water and you get symptoms, get active about it. There are more and more who are — you won’t be alone.

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On water filtering devices:

When my water district switched to chloramine I bought a water filtering device for $355 that used 3 large cannisters of carbon and then, after that, the water went through a reverse osmosis (RO) membrane. A fellow I spoke with at the company told me that the carbon filters would last a family of 4 for a year and the RO would last 3-5 years. I mentioned that I live alone and he said then those filters should last a lot longer.

After 10 months of using it for drinking water I got a stomach ache. I thought I had a bug. After 2 weeks of the stomach ache it occurred to me that the filtering device was failing. It had come with a particle reader with a LED readout window. It had always read “000″. But this time it read “011″. I called the company and asked them what that meant and the guy said that it was now working at 89% capacity and would never be 100% effective again even if I changed all the filters (for $200, thank you very much!).

I immediately stopped using that device and my stomach ache went away within a day. I threw the thing out, to my utter disgust. I am a poor person. This expenditure was a very big deal for me.

I was having spring water delivered in 5-gal. jugs (plastic!) and so upped my monthly delivery of spring water to cover what I was drinking. $19.50 more per month on that for 15 gallons.

This past fall our state Dept. of Environmental conservation, who permitted our water district to use chloramine, threw a day long symposium on water quality for any water treatment people in the state to come to. I think most or all went. I went and made sure they all knew what was happening in my water district with chloramine. On of the keynote speakers was Dr. Richard Bull. All the other speakers seemed to look up to him so we snagged him for lunch. I ran my water filter saga by him and he thought my stomach ache was caused by microorganisms/bacteria which had inundated the filters because of chloramine being such a crappy disinfectant.

So who knows if it was bacteria and microorganisms or chloramine itself that caused my stomach ache. This is the reason I highly recommend NOT using any filtration devices when it comes to chloramine, or if you do, change the filters every 2-3 months (something that is way beyond my financial means).

I now use spring water, bottled in plastic, for cooking, face-washing, teeth brushing, making tea and ice cubes, my dog and cats’ water bowls. By the way, we also have had skin and digestive reactions in pets reported to us, including one death: one formerly very healthy 6-year old dog died of inflammatory bowel disease. It came out of the blue, starting as a case of diarrhea a couple of months after the switch to chloramine. It got worse and worse until he was on death’s door, suffering terribly. He was put to sleep 3 months after the diarrhea started. If we had only heard about this before the dog died. I would have told the owner to try giving the dog spring water in his bowl and see if that would help. I don’t know of one case of symptoms coming after the switch where a suffering human or animal didn’t get better from stopping exposure to the chloraminated water. We have 50 - 60 or so people, and a handful of dogs and cats who all got better after getting off the water. Not one didn’t get better.

If chloramine dissipated out of water as fast as chorine does, then I would use the tap water for my pets but that’s not possible anymore, so I buy spring water for them, too.