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A change in disinfectants is intended to reduce carcinogens and might even make tap water taste a bit better, officials say.
By JAMES THORNER, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published April 30, 2002
LAND O'LAKES -- What's foul for fish but fine for folks?
Chloramines, and they're coming to a faucet near you.
About half of Pasco County, along with much of the Tampa Bay Water drinking area, will switch to the new water disinfectant Monday.
Affected are Pasco utility customers from Wesley Chapel, Land O'Lakes and Odessa, from the New River development in the east to the Seven Springs and Wyndham Lakes neighborhoods in the west.
Chloramines promise to be less of a cancer risk than the free chlorine long favored by utilities to kill bacteria in the water supply.
And the chemical, a mix of chlorine and ammonia, is supposed to rid tap water of its swimming pool taste.
"Our belief is the water will actually taste better," Pasco Utilities Director Bruce Kennedy said.
Fish lovers might disagree. Aquatic animals -- that includes freshwater and saltwater fish, frogs, turtles and snails -- die when chloramines hit their bloodstreams.
When you leave aquarium water standing, free chlorine tends to evaporate fast. That's not so with chloramines, which linger for weeks.
To make water habitable, pet store and aquarium owners need a special carbon filter or an inexpensive water additive such as Ammono-Lock.
Store owners such as Peg Gilley of Peg's Exotic Pets in Wesley Chapel are distributing instructional pamphlets courtesy of Tampa Bay Water.
"A lot of the fish people come in and say, "What's going on?" Gilley said last week. "I tell them, "We're getting new water."
Kidney dialysis machines, which operate on a principle similar to a fish's gills, also can't tolerate chloramines. But dialysis operators already filter their water.
Tampa Bay Water changed disinfectants to stay ahead of new rules pushed by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
Free chlorine tends to bond with traces of naturally occurring organic compounds found in ground and surface water. The interaction forms minute quantities of trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids, and long exposure to those might cause cancer.
"Regulations require us to control these byproducts of the disinfection process," Kennedy said. "The most cost effective thing we could do was to quit using free chlorine and switch to chloramines."
The switch will add only a penny to the price of 1,000 gallons of water, Kennedy said. Still, Tampa Bay Water plans to raise the wholesale price of water charged counties from $1.49 per 1,000 gallons this year to an estimated $1.76 per 1,000 next year.
Most of west Pasco residents won't get chloramines in their water until late 2003. That includes customers of Pasco utilities and some private utilities, such as Aloha. East Pasco customers might have to wait even longer than that.
In most cases, private well users and self-sufficient smaller utilities are unaffected by the changes.