More than one in five Americans are drinking tap water that's been treated with a derivative of chlorine known as chloramine. This disinfectant is formed by mixing chlorine with ammonia.
For this reason, chloramine is often used alongside chlorine as a "secondary" disinfectant designed to remain in your water longer – but is it safe?
One of the benefits often touted about chloramines is that they produce lower levels of regulated DBPs, such as THMs, compared to chlorine. They still produce them, just at lower levels.
There are other issues with chloramine in your water that you should be aware of, like its potential to extract lead from old water pipes. For example, when you combine chloramines with the fluoride (hydrofluorosilicic acid) added to most of the U.S. water supply, they become very effective at extracting lead from old plumbing systems—essentially, together, they promote the accumulation of lead in the water supply!
"In fact the two of them have been combined, and I believe patented to be put together so that they could extract lead," said fluoride activist Jeff Green.
Lead, a known toxin to your brain and nervous system, is so toxic that it has been banned in gasoline and children's toys, and lead paint hasn't been in use since 1978. But even the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledges that when chlorine is replaced with chloramines in drinking water, it raises not only the amount of lead that leaches into water, but the blood lead levels of children who consume it!
"When the free chlorine was replaced with chloramines, the transformed highly insoluble lead scale minerals were no longer stable and dissolved. Therefore, a substantial level of lead was released from the lead service lines into drinking water at the tap.
CDC reviewed the relationship between BLLs [blood lead levels] in children, the presence of a lead service line, and water disinfection practices in DC during 1998–2006. The study reported that the presence of a lead service line was associated with higher BLLs in children. This relationship was most pronounced during 2001 through June 2004, when chloramines were used to disinfect the drinking water without adequate corrosion control.
"Several recent studies provided evidence that the introduction of chloramines to water systems with lead-containing pipes, fixtures, or solder may increase the amount of dissolved lead in water because of changes in water chemistry; interactions with additives such as coagulants or fluoridation agents may remove lead dioxide scales originally formed during decades of chlorine-based disinfection.
This leaching might be managed to some extent by the addition of anticorrosivity agents during the water treatment process; however, the details of all the related environmental chemistry are not fully understood and are highly dependent on the particular chemical interactions found in each water treatment and distribution system."
" …chloramines, like chlorine, can irritate sensitive mucus membranes, and could potentially cause skin irritation. When some utilities have switched to chloramine, there have been user reports of bad-tasting water, a bad feel of the water on the skin, skin irritation, and other symptoms."
This is concerning, since exposure to chloramine in your indoor air while bathing and showering may represent your greatest route of exposure, even more so than drinking it.
Also the cancer studies on chloramine itself are so limited that they cannot be used to determine if chloramine is a carcinogen, and its environmental effects are worrisome. Chloramine is toxic to frogs and other amphibians, reptiles, fish and other aquatic and marine life, to the extent that you cannot use chloramine-treated water to fill up a fish tank or backyard fish pond. As the water runs into streams, rivers and other marine areas, it could be disastrous for the marine life.
Chloramine cannot be removed by quick boiling your water or letting it sit out in an open container (as is sometimes recommended for chlorine). A carbon filter can remove the chemical from your drinking water, but that leaves your shower and bath – a significant route of exposure -- without protection. It would be helpful to take as cold a shower as possible as heat will convert more of the chemicals to a toxic gas. Additionally shorter showers will also obviously further limit your exposure.
Because of the high flow rate and large volume of water passing through your shower, there is no showerhead filter on the market that will effectively remove all chloramine. A whole-house filtration system is therefore your best choice to remove chlorine, chloramine, ammonia, DBPs and other contaminants from all of your water sources (bath, shower and tap).
1 Environ Health Perspect. 2007 February; 115(2): 221–225.
2 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Does Monochloramine Cause Cancer?
3 Mutation Research 2007 Nov-Dec;636(1-3):178-242. Epub 2007 Sep 12.
5 Environ Health Perspect. 2007 February; 115(2): 221–225.