Drinking water treated with chloramines found to contain highly toxic chemicals, says EPA

• Genetic toxicologist Michael Plewa and Elizabeth Wagner, principal research specialist, both in the department of crop scieces, collaborated with three EPA researchers on research into a disinfection byproduct found in drinking water treated with chloramines.
• The discovery raises health-related questions regarding an Environmental Protection Agency plan to encourage all U.S. water-treatment facilities to adopt chlorine alternatives, said Michael J. Plewa [PLEV-uh], a genetic toxicologist in the department of crop sciences.
• "This research says that when you go to alternatives, you may be opening a Pandora's box of new DBPs, and these unregulated DBPs may be much more toxic, by orders of magnitude, than the regulated ones we are trying to avoid."
• Plewa and colleagues, three of them with the EPA, report on the structure and toxicity of five iodoacids found in chloramines-treated water in Corpus Christi, Texas, in this month's issue of the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
• "Not only do they represent a potential danger because of all the water consumed on a daily basis, water is recycled back into the environment.
• The use of chloramines, a combination of chlorine and ammonia, is one of three alternatives to chlorine disinfectant, which has been used for more than 100 years.
• Scientists believe they've identified maybe 50 percent of all DBPs that occur in chlorine-treated water, but only 17 percent of those occurring in chloramines-treated water, 28 percent in water treated with chlorine-dioxide, and just 8 percent in ozone-treated water.
• The DBPs in Corpus Christi's water were found as part of an EPA national occurrence survey of selected public water-treatment plants done in 2002.