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Local group continues fight against chloramine in water

by Renee Batti

It's been a year of ups and downs for the plucky members of the Menlo Park-based group that's fighting to have the disinfectant chloramine removed from the Bay Area's water.

And although the year is ending on a down note for them, anyone familiar with the group's leader, Denise Johnson-Kula of Menlo Park, will not be surprised to learn that she's nowhere close to throwing in the towel.

Her group, Concerned Citizens About Chloramine (CCAC), reached an important milestone in July in its efforts to convince key water officials that critical studies on the health effects of chloramine hadn't been done before the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) decided to add the substance to the water supply it oversees.

Chloramine — a combination of chlorine and ammonia used as a disinfectant — was added in February 2004 to the water of all customers receiving their supply from the Hetch Hetchy system, and since then, Ms. Johnson-Kula says, hundreds of people have reported reactions ranging from respiratory and intestinal distress to severe skin ailments.

At the July SFPUC meeting, group members and other Bay Area residents testified about a range of ailments — some of them severe and disabling — that they believed were caused by chloramine. And they insisted that some key studies on the health effects of chloramine have never been done, even though the disinfectant is used in numerous water supplies across the country and elsewhere in the world.

After hearing the testimony, commission President Richard Sklar directed the staff to seek out such studies — or determine if they even exist — and report back to the commission.

CCAC members were ecstatic.

But on Nov. 14, the SFPUC heard the staff's report, and unanimously agreed that chloramine should remain in the water, although staff was directed to continue monitoring all new information about the additive and its possible side effects.

Ms. Johnson-Kula was not only disappointed by the decision, she was angry, calling the entire process a "snow job."

"The purpose of the meeting was supposed to be to report on the (staff's research) of health studies done on respiratory, dermal and digestive issues, and to find out if cancer studies were ever finished," she said after the meeting.

"They spent three months looking, didn't find any, and decided to turn this into a review of chloramine concerns, where they gave us pretty much the same old rehash of information. They didn't find the studies ... and they tried to cover that up with a big presentation on why it's great anyway."

The group's position on the lack of health studies focusing on those four areas has been bolstered by at least two other public water agencies: the Bay Area Water Supply and Conservation Agency, which represents the 26 cities and water districts receiving Hetch Hetchy water; and the North Coast County Water District in Pacifica. Both agencies sought studies over the past year, and both say were unable to find any.

Soon after the November meeting, Ms. Johnson-Kula dashed off a letter asking the SFPUC to schedule another hearing to specifically address the issue of whether adequate chloramine health studies have been done. She protested the one-minute time limit imposed on speakers at the Nov. 14 meeting, and asked that CCAC members and others be given more time to present information gathered over the last two years through their own research.

But it appears that hearing won't take place.

"It wouldn't be productive or a good use of anyone's time to meet again about the exact same issues and exact same thing when there's no new information on either side," said SFPUC spokesman Tony Winnicker.

The staff will follow the direction of the commission and "keep paying attention to the latest developments" related to chloramine, and will update the commission in a year, he said.

Meanwhile, Ms. Johnson-Kula says the contacts to her group from people in other states and other countries continue to grow in number as chloramine is added to more and more water supplies and people experience adverse effects. They learn about the group through its Web site, chloramine.org, and in some cases establish their own activist groups against the water additive.