What Every Bronx Resident Should Know About Chlorine in Water
- Published:
- Updated: January 20, 2025
Summary
Chlorine is widely used in the Bronx and around the world to disinfect drinking water, ensuring its safety by eliminating harmful microbes. While essential, chlorine can produce an unpleasant taste and smell, and long-term exposure has been linked to potential health concerns, including respiratory irritation and possibly certain cancers. However, the risks from untreated water far outweigh those from chlorine.
- Chlorine’s role: Disinfects water by killing bacteria and viruses.
- Health impact: Minor irritation in some; potential long-term risks need further research.
- Chlorine taste: Can be reduced by boiling, using water filters, or letting water stand uncovered.
Healthy living starts with clean, safe drinking water. Chlorine, a potent disinfectant that’s standard in water treatment, is just one ingredient that helps keep our water safe. But there’s something about the chlorine in our water that can be alarming to public.
The Role of Chlorine in Water Treatment
Our water supply is safe because of chlorine. ‘You add it to the water during the process to destroy bacteria, viruses and other microbes that can lead to illness. This is a process of disinfection that has been in use for more than 100 years and has helped to virtually eradicate waterborne diseases such as cholera and typhoid in industrialised nations.
But chlorine is an arm’s length play. Though chlorine is needed to disinfect water, if it’s applied too heavily, it makes the water taste and smell bad, and can even cause problems. This requires monitoring and balancing the chlorine in the water supply.
Chlorine Levels in the Bronx Water Supply
And in the Bronx – like many places in the country – there’s chlorine used to keep the water safe. The chlorine concentration in the water is maintained at levels that regulatory authorities dictate so as to keep the water disinfectant and safe for the users.
Regular measurements keep them in the upper limit. As citizens, knowing about these practices can make us feel better about the security of our water supply.
Potential Health Impacts of Chlorine
Chlorine helps to protect water, but over time the toxic concentrations of chlorine can harm the body. A few reports suggest the potential connection between chronic drinking of chlorinated water and bladder and rectal cancer – but more research is required to confirm.
Further, people can also be irritated by mild respiratory and eye irritation by chlorinated water, particularly in hot showers where chlorine evaporates. Keep in mind, though, that disease-causing microbes in unchlorinated water are much worse than the chlorine risk to the majority of people.
The Chlorine Taste and Smell
Most of us are also used to the taste and smell of chlorinated water. That’s because chlorine reacts with the organics in the water, creating different chlorinated compounds. These chemicals are usually harmless in the levels that are present in treated water, but they can sour the water.
Luckily, chlorine smell and taste can be easily eliminated by boiling water, leaving it out in the open for a few hours or using a water filter. That way you won’t be missing out on the water and you’ll still get the protection chlorine provides.
How to Test for Chlorine in Your Home's Water
The chlorine test in your home water is easy to do. : A home test kit is available on the internet or in an hardware store. These kits usually consist of adding a reagent to a drop of water and then watching the color shift to get a chlorine level.
These checks are useful for security and can alert you to possible problems with your water supply. But they’re not a substitute for all the testing that your municipal water system does, testing for all sorts of contaminants.
Methods for Removing or Reducing Chlorine in Drinking Water
You can try some of the following techniques if you’d like to cut down on the chlorine in your water:
Water filters: Most water filters will remove chlorine, for instance.
Boiling: Boiling water for 15-20 minutes removes chlorine.
Damp water: Even if you leave water in the sun for a few hours, chlorine evaporates.
There is a pros and cons to each, so you may have to experiment a bit.
What is the role of municipalities in monitoring chlorine levels?
Controlling and monitoring the levels of chlorine in the public water supply is the job of the local council. That’s the job of the Department of Environmental Protection in the Bronx. They test the water every few days and change the chlorine levels as necessary to keep things balanced.
Alongside this monitoring, the authorities also send annual water quality reports to residents. These reports give you an open view of local water quality, chlorine, etc, so you know exactly what your water supply is.
Looking Forward: Alternatives to Chlorine in Water Treatment
Chlorine has been used in water treatment for 100 plus years, but other techniques for water disinfection are under investigation. Among those are other disinfectants (such as chloramines and ozone) and non-chemical ones (such as ultraviolet light).
Such new techniques are an opportunity for the future of water treatment, perhaps in that they could be a means to clean water without chlorine’s side effects. But chlorine for now is the best and cheapest water disinfection solution out there.
Conclusion
Chlorine is still the best and most prevalent disinfectant for water protection in the Bronx. But as options are explored, chlorine problems can be tamed for residents using common sense and by relying on regular water quality reports from municipal authorities.
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