Nineteen hours ago, one of our greatest allies here in Florida, Erin Brockovich, had this to say on her personal Facebook page, about what’s going on:
“How many ways can you bombard a community at the same time… and lie to them with a straight face? Unreal… the Florida Coast has suffer so much already.
This IS NOT a standard practice, recommended by the American Water Works Association (AWWA) as a precautionary measure to maintain high water quality in the City’s distribution system.
A free chlorine burn is performed after the drinking water utility looses control of the water quality. The Disinfection Byproducts Rule is very clear… Community Water Systems are required to reduce the total organic carbon (Dirt) in the source water that when disinfection (chlorine, chlorine dioxide, chloramine, UV, Ozone) is performed the toxic disinfection byproducts are not formed. The best available technologies are clearly defined in the regulation: 1. Lime softening followed by granular activated carbon filtration; or, 2. Enhanced coagulation followed by granular activated carbon filtration. Removal of total organic carbon (Dirt) precursors is what the regulation intended to accomplish. REMOVAL OF DIRT FROM DRINKING WATER… PERIOD.
What did City of Port St. Lucie chose to do instead… ADD AMMONIA to chlorine to form chloramine. Good people of Pot St. Lucie… this is a cheap dirty trick and a really bad idea. It does not reduce the DIRT in the drinking water… it masks or covers up the ability for chlorine to react with the remaining DIRT and form “regulated” disinfection byproducts. Sadly… they only care about “regulated” toxins. Chloramine actually forms toxins 1,000 time more dangerous… they are just not yet “regulated”. They know this and frankly just don’t care.
So… the ammonia is pumped into your drinking water… it is not “Safe”… it is a weaker disinfectant… which allows (actually feeds) bacteria and biofilms in the pipes, plumbing systems and appliances. This biofilm exhausts the chlorine freeing up the ammonia (nitrification) which is like candy to bacteria and your system begins to fail. After this failure… the free chlorine burnout becomes necessary. Again… it is not “Safe” it is toxic and dangerous. Just where do you think the broken down biofilm ends up? Yuck!
In this scientific article from 1999,http://www.nesc.wvu.edu/ndwc/articles/QandA/OTsp99_Q_A.pdf, this issue of chlorine disinfection and the byproducts it produces, namely trihalomethanes which is a category that includes several toxic chemicals, is discussed as well as the necessity to prevent this practice and what can be done so it is no longer needed. That was nearly 20 years ago! As this article and several other more recent ones report, devastating, incurable, life-altering results come from trihalomethanes, like cancers, reproductive issues, and miscarriages.”
