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Detecting Trace-Level Haloacetic Acids in Drinking Water
Safely disinfecting the water supplyJohnson Mathew, Rick McMillin, Jay Gandhi, Sheher Mohsin and Stefanie Czyborra
Chlorine has been widely used to kill disease-causing microbes in drinking water. The addition of chlorine in public water systems across the United States to kill microbial pathogens in the water supply has been cited as one of the greatest public health advances of the 20th century. For example, between the years of 1880 and 1890, American cities experienced an average mortality rate of 58 deaths per 100,000 from typhoid, which was commonly transmitted through contaminated water. By 1938, this rate had fallen to 0.67 deaths per 100,000, largely due to improved treatment of drinking water.
During the disinfection process, organic and inorganic material in source waters can combine with chlorine and certain other chemical disinfectants to form disinfection byproducts (DBPs). More than 260 million people in the U.S. are exposed to disinfected water and DBPs (USEPA 2005a). Although chlorine is the most commonly applied disinfectant, other disinfectants, including ozone, chlorine dioxide, chloramine and ultraviolet radiation, are in use. In combination with these, all surface water systems must also use either chlorine or chloramine to maintain a disinfectant residual in their distribution system. The kind of disinfectant used can produce different types and levels of disinfectant byproducts in the drinking water.
Due to the graphs in this article a PDF has been made available for download.
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