You can treat for bacteria in water with UV instead of chlorine or chloramine, but it’s quite costly and doesn’t offer any downstream protection. That is, when you treat water with chlorine so that there’s some residual (typically 5 ppm), it keeps any bacteria from forming down the line. Sand filtration does essentially nothing with regards to removing bacteria.
And rest assured, if you have untreated water, there will be bacteria in it. Not all will be harmful, but a lot will.
Blue Baby Syndrome is not caused by chlorimines, but by nitrates.
It seems I expressed myself unclear. What I mean is: it sounds as if the water provider / city service company is measuring the water, finding high bacteria content, and treating that by dumping chemicals into it. That’s treating the symptom, not the cause.
What I am used to and therefore expect* is the water provider taking pro-active steps to prevent the water getting unclean in the very first place. For example, in my city, the water comes from a river in a valley in the mountains one hour south. It rains a lot there naturally, and the ground is good for filtering. On top of these natural benefits, our city service company has bought a lot of land to make sure nothing spoils the water there, and planted a huge forest, which is well-maintained, because the forest soil is the first filtering layer, before the mineral layers start.
They also paid bonuses for the farmers in the valley downstream to switch to organic farming (all have over the past years). So instead of trying to remove nitrogen from fertilizers, pesticides and untreated cow shit that runs off from the fields into the ground and into the water, this doesn’t get into the water in the first place.
The next big project is a huge renewal of the pipes, which were built 50 to 100 years ago (I saw some of the old brick pipes!) to make sure no water is wasted on the journey to the city, and that there are no cracks where things might seep in.
In the whole valley, cars are forbidden (except for the workers themselves), only train and bikes, to prevent oil or gas spills. And so on.
Huh? Who said anyhting about surface waters? I thought we were talking about tap water, that is, drinking water? Do you not have a strict standard for drinking water in your country? Not only with regards to bacteria, but also for pesticides and so on? No, “every surface water” where I live are not sterile. We don’t want them sterile! We want the rivers to have the little crabs that indicate clear water! (Bio-indicaters).
Our water provider has several aquariums, where every day the water on its way to the city is branched off, filled with several species of sensitive fish and other critters, to serve in addition to the devices monitoring water quality. If the fish drop dead, they know something is deeply wrong and can stop the flow.
The tap water in my city performs to the highest standards of drinking water. The water in my local river (Isar, not the drinking water - that’s the Mangfall, a different valley) was brought up to “bathing water” standards several years back - my city paid for 57 communities and towns upstreams to add UV lights as 4th stage in sewage treatment, before the cleaned water is put back into the river. Now, the river is guaranteed to have no harmful bacteria like E. coli (can cause diarrhoe, and indicates fecal matter). Of course bacteria are everywhere, and it’s still not advisable to drink large quantitites of Isar river water. *
Our small lakes around the city are tested regularly for E. coli and others by a city department, and the results are available on the city homepage. Usually, if the summer is long, the beaches get dirtier, because you need a good storm to mix the water again. It’s still very clean.
Oh, and on lake Starnberg and the other lakes, there are big signs forbidding people to feed the swans and other water birds, so they don’t shit into the water too often, which might cause a flip. If necessary, very small lakes with huge crowds are ventilated with air to help aerobic breakdown of the organic matter.
And where were we talking about “far from civilsation”? This is about the OP getting tap water from a water provider, after all! Certainly well water needs to be tested, because a private person doesn’t have the resources to control the water sources as well as a big city service company can with the communal water supply.
*The city still reminds people to not swim after a heavy rain with flooding, because earth and dirt is then swept into the river, and that is not purely healthy. But it takes only a couple of days till the water is clean again.
A lot of places in Germany use ozone instead of chlorine for drinking water now, because of the danger of chlorine if it leaks.
This is the part I don’t understand. So the water provider tests the water, finds high bacteria content and treats it to kill the bacteria. And then the water is delivered to the consumers … and gets contaminated on the way again? Why? Are your pipes in such a bad condition that leaks occurr? Is your city service company not responsible for replacing leaky pipes? No money? Is the demand so low that water sits around for days and days, allowing new contamination?
When I took a tour of the Mangfall valley last year by my water provider, they showed me how the water is kept moving all the time from the collecting, to the temporary wells, down the pipes, to the storage basins in the city, from which it is distributed to the houses. They said that keeping it moving adds air and prevents in the easiest way a lot of problems that still water would get. (And it looked very neat to see water slowly flowing down a huge concrete spiral, changing colour with each step as the volume increased).
Does your water provider not have that technology?
Where is it that you think drinking water comes from?
Pipes aren’t sterile.
All of these are good steps. None of them ensure that water will be bacteria-free.
If you really want to get rid of the chlorine and chloramine, there’s two things to do. One, UV rays readily break down chlorine so warming it by sunlight for a day will get rid of it. for the chloramine, you need potassium metabisulfite, also known as campden tablets. They’re used in the brewing and wine industry to sanitize juice and fermentation vessels. One tablet per 5 gallons works well.
My water district switched over about 15 years ago from chlorine to chloramine. I could not use it in my fish tank with my froggies, which I later gave away. I have died on many occasions due to the chloramine, have bowel release syndrome that is directly caused by chloramine according to the little old ladies that my coffee enema service. Additionally, I have put on weight, had my eyesight go to hell (reading only) and can’t get an erection as easily as I used to. These are all caused by chloramine and Nutrasweet ™ and give me regular brain tumors, which are inoperable and don’t go away until I forget about them. I got an email from an Amway distributor pointing out the dangers of chloramine as a Muslim plot.
Now, it has been scientifically proven that even the slight doses of chloramine that water districts put into their water kills trillions and trillions and trillions of bacteria. It is the most deadly agent put in your water for that reason. Woo woo.
Actually, lots of municipalities get their water from underground sources, dedicated aquifers or wells. Cities don’t just stick a pipe into the nearest river and start slurping it up - it’ll probably be filthy!
Does Germany not have the technology to prevent chlorine leaks? Are you really contending that in all the storage tanks, reservoirs and holding cisterns, your city’s drinking water never sits still? Pipes corrode, leak, and pit. Roots invade junctions and crack them open. Open reservoirs collect animal droppings and skinny-dippers’ filth.
Cities, generally, don’t use water with “high bacteria content” and then dump in chemicals to make it hunky-dory. They find extremely clean, low-bacteria water and then ensure that it stays that way through the hundreds of miles of pipe which are obviously not sterile. Also remember that if your city’s been around for a while, chances are the water source is equally as old and may not completely ideal.
Chemical treatment of water very objectively reduces infectious disease. Chloramines are fantastic at their job and while, yes, they have health risks so will any effective biocide.
This woo-woo anti-chemical hysteria is unfounded in reality and, at best, misleading.
Lots use aquifers, yes (which still contain bacteria, and will until we can convince deer to wear diapers). But some cities do exactly what you’re talking about - the city I live in, for instance, does in fact take water from the nearest river - but treats it, of course.
Huh? Do you mean your water provider takes surface water (?!), dumps some disinfecting chemicals into it to kill bacteria, and delivers it to citizens as tap water??? Really? That’s a whoosh, right?
The normal process it: you have an area (usually mountainous) where it rains a lot, preferrably with forest. The rain water filters down through the forest earth (first filter), through the deeper earth layer (second filter) and through the rocks itself (third layer). After several week to months, the water is filtered and tapped at a certain level in the water tableau. Then it’s tested to make sure it’s clean and piped to the city.
For those who don’t have mountains nearby, like e.g. the people on Boden Lake (city of Konstanz), they have a large area of beach set aside, with sand and pebbles, which filters the water (the lake is very very big, so things are diffused). Then, it’s tested, treated with ozone if necessary, and piped to the citizens.
Even in the Ruhr region, people don’t get their water any longer from the Rhine river*, but from the Sauerland mountains and cleaner rivers farther away.
Yes. And? So what? Water doesn’t have to be sterile (in the clinical sense), you just have to keep out the harmful bacteria. Guess what, when you take a breath of air, you breathe in bacteria! Maybe you better start wearing a mask against them, too!
Unless your water is left stagnating somewhere for days, or unless there are cracks through which earth-bound dangerous bacteria can seep in, or unless your pipes are made from corrosive materials (lead, copper, etc), then normal pipes, that have been certified for drinking water and are well-maintained will not put harmful bacteria back into clean water.
Yes, of course we have. Most swimming pools still use it, and a few cities have it when the water gets dirty after heavy rainfall in the source regions. But if a problem with chlorine happens, a big area is screwed.
Maybe it’s a regional thing - Germany is densly populated, so we can’t take the approach “that’s just empty land, no problem”. Instead, we try to avoid technologies that have catastrophic consequences in case of failure, even if the technology is tripple- and quadruple safe.
Well, yes. Because there are mechanisms to move it. We are still talking about drinking water, right? Cold water? Obviously, warm water is heated locally, and of course that’s in a storage tank. But that’s for washing and external use. Internal water is heated with a cooker from cold tap water.
No, because it’s the job of water provider to inspect them regularly and replace if necessary. That’s why I said in my post that that’s the next big project of my water provider, to replace the pipes before they become too old.
Open reservoirs ?? Do you mean bathing lakes? Drinking water does not come from there. Do you mean dammed rivers, for energy production and flood control? Drinking water doesn’t come from there, either. In my city, all reservoirs are underground.
Now, in Mid-Germany they did damn up valleys to even out fluctuations. I would have to ask more details about how they keep those clean. Presumably with filtering later.
Yes, that’s what we do over here. Is this also the standard in the US? Because I haven’t heard yet anything about preventing pollution of the source water.
Also, why the fixation on “sterility”? Keep out the shit and manure from the water source, and keep the pipes from leaking, then where are the bacteria that cause Diarrhoe and similar going to come from?
Um, the water source replenishes regularly! Or do you mean the pipes? I’ll repeat again, they are inspected regularly, maintained and replaced. The only trouble can occur near your own house, when a tree root grows into a pipe and the water in your house is polluted, but that’s hardly the fault or concern of the water company!
Well, very objectivly, my city water is tested regularly, and found to be clean and safe, without any chemical treatment. It isn’t tested for sterility, because that isn’t necessary. But according to your logic, we should all be sick because they don’t dump chemicals into it, right?
So asking to prevent pollution of the water source in first place is woo -woo? Wondering whether additional chemicals might have an effect on the body is woo-woo? I call that misleading and the whole attitude demanding drinking water to be sterile - while apparently, pesticide, nitrates and other stuff is no concern at all? Chloramines don’t remove those, but other steps taken haven’t been mentioned - sounds hysterical to me.
Note: I’m not saying that polluted water can’t be harmful. I know quite well that too many children die each day because of unsafe drinking water in 3rd wordl countries. But between “unsafe” and “sterile” there’s a normal approach. And between “dump chloramines, they are safer than infection and everything must be sterile” and “chloramines are dangerous” there’s also a wide, wide normal and reasonable approach.
:rolleyes:
Yes, what an adult response. The deer can shit in the woods because the water is filtered through earth and then rock, while the shit stays up top.
Treats it how - chemically or otherwise? How dirty is your river? What is your city doing to get the communities upriver to keep the river clean?
Oh wait, there are chloramines in the water, so everything is sterile and wonderful, right? Nothing to worry about, nothing to change, just dump stuff.
There’s more steps involved, but yes, my city does exactly this. I biked past one of the city’s two main reservoirs today. There’s are fairly elaborate filtration systems (I’ve worked on them) but that’s just one step involved. Filtration removes impurities and some mineral content, but does nothing with regards to bacteria content.
Keeping untreated cow-shit (or pig-shit*) out of the area and water supply does keep bacteria away. And anyway, the goal is “safe and clean” drinking water, not bacteria-free. I really don’t understand the hysterics about bacteria. We keep out harmful bacteria.
I wondered why the nearby citizens weren’t more upset about this.
But now I understand: dumping chloramines into the water solves the problem, and is cheaper and easier than hurting a company doing business.
Air doesn’t make a great breeding ground for bacteria, there being no food source or place for them to affix themselves to. There are some aerosols, but rather few if you’re not in direct vicinity of other people. And yes, people do get sick from breathing in bacteria and viruses in these situations.
Water, on the other hand, is an idea breeding ground for bacteria, and no matter what steps you take, e. coli, cryptospordium and other assorted baddies are going to get in there unless you take steps to kill them. The various methods mentioned above by Interconnected Series of Tubes will provide entry points for bacteria. The best system in the world can’t prevent this.
screwed up code