Denise Johnson-Kula of Menlo Park wasn’t in the best of health on February 2, 2004. Yet, she had reason to be optimistic: Her multiple sclerosis had been “clinically stable” for several years, and a skin condition was being “well controlled” by ointments, her doctors said.
But on February 3 of that year, she says, she almost died — and it was the water streaming from her shower head that nearly killed her.
Within minutes of turning on the water, Ms. Johnson-Kula was stricken with symptoms mimicking a severe asthma attack, although she didn’t have asthma. Unable to breathe and on the verge of passing out, she struggled to exit the shower and bathroom without falling to the floor.
Afterward, breathing was an effort, and for the next three days she had to sleep sitting up, she recalls.
What was behind this sudden assault on her respiratory system? The cause remained a mystery to her and her doctors until she discovered that on February 2, the day before her frightening ordeal, a new disinfectant was added to the water supply.
Known as chloramine, the additive is a combination of chlorine and ammonia, and is being used by more and more of the nation’s cities as a substitute for straight chlorine, which was being used locally before 2004.
Chloramine is now in the water of all customers receiving water from the Hetch Hetchy system, administered by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, or SFPUC. That includes all local residences and businesses, save for a few on well water systems.
Experts say it’s safe
The change is a good thing, say SFPUC officials and public health experts throughout the state. “There’s a body of evidence that goes back decades that chloramine is safe in water,” says SFPUC spokesman Tony Winnicker.The agency relied on the advice and recommendations of public health agencies to determine that “chloramine disinfectant is the safest — and it keeps water safe for a longer period of time,” he says.
And, he and others note, there is no hard “cause and effect” evidence that symptoms reported by Ms. Johnson-Kula and other local residents are a result of chloramine.
But since learning about the addition of chloramine to the water, doing countless hours of research, and hearing from hundreds of others who have suffered a range of symptoms since being exposed to chloraminated water, Ms. Johnson-Kula is adamant in her belief that switching to chloramine was a serious misstep by the water provider.
She maintains that necessary studies haven’t been done to prove that chloraminated water is safe for humans, and that “we are the guinea pigs.” Inconclusive cancer studies have been abandoned, and no studies have focused on skin and respiratory effects of the additive, says Ms. Johnson-Kula, who has a background in biochemistry.
Two of her doctors at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation have written letters linking her problems to the additive.
In his letter, Dr. Robert Bocian in the department of allergy urged water officials to “make every effort to accommodate [Ms. Johnson-Kula] with an effective means of removing the chloramine from the water supplied to her dwelling. Doing so is hereby stated as a medical necessity for this patient.”
Removing chloramine from water is a formidable task, though — and expensive. And because Ms. Johnson-Kula lives in an apartment, it is also impractical.
To challenge the SFPUC’s decision to chloraminate water, Ms. Johnson-Kula founded Citizens Concerned About Chloramine, or CCAC. Members advocate a halt to the additive’s use until more research is done.
Their efforts attracted the attention of Assemblyman Ira Ruskin, D-Redwood City. Mr. Ruskin, chair of the Assembly’s Environmental Safety Committee, introduced a bill in February that would lead to more research on chemical disinfectants added to the state’s water supply.
Why the switch?
The SFPUC switched from chlorine to chloramine to meet the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s mandate to reduce trihalomethanes (THMs) in the water supply; THMs are a byproduct of chlorine, and considered a possible carcinogen.“Since we introduced chloramines, we’ve cut [THMs] by more than half,” says Mr. Winnicker of the SFPUC.
He notes that the agency finds the use of chloramine as a disinfectant to be not only successful, but cost effective.
According to the SFPUC Web site, “All drinking water suppliers using surface water are required by (the EPA) to use disinfectants to eliminate micro-organisms in drinking water supplies.”
Mr. Winnicker says the SFPUC “consistently meets or exceeds standards” for water quality.
Prior to putting the additive in the water, the agency conducted numerous public meetings and waged an intensive public information campaign to notify customers. That included literature in pet stores to alert people with fish that they had to filter aquarium water in a different way.
It also included sending out notices in water bills. Ms. Johnson-Kula and many others who live in apartments didn’t receive those notices because their landlords receive the water bills and, in many cases, didn’t pass along the information.
Citizens’ group
In June 2004, Ms. Johnson-Kula convened the first CCAC meeting. In the nearly two years since, the group has documented more than 200 cases that Ms. Johnson-Kula says show “cause and effect” cases of serious reactions to chloraminated water, including people suffering from intestinal, respiratory and skin problems.Many of these people now drink and cook with bottled water only, and some can’t use their tap water for bathing and brushing their teeth in the way they could before. That includes Ms. Johnson-Kula, who now has to limit her showers to one a week, when she visits her mother in Morgan Hill. The water there is chloramine-free.
Members have also given community presentations, and attended meetings of public boards to voice their concerns.
The group’s first victory was last fall, when the North Coast County Water District in Pacifica responded to a CCAC presentation by sending letters to the SFPUC and the Bay Area Water Supply and Conservation Agency pushing for more studies on the health effects of chloramine.
The board of the Bay Area Water Supply and Conservation Agency, or BAWSCA, is composed of representatives from all 26 cities or water districts receiving water from the Hetch Hetchy system. After receiving the Pacifica water agency’s letter, BAWSCA’s general manager Art Jensen wrote to several key public health agencies, asking about past, future and ongoing studies on the epidemiological, dermatological and respiratory effects on humans of chloraminated water.
The responses, he says, were not satisfactory and were, in some cases, “spurious.” After contacting several agencies by phone later, he concluded that the agencies were unable to cite studies he asked about.
Councilwoman Kelly Fergusson, who represents Menlo Park on the BAWSCA board, says that as a result of the health agencies’ inability to produce the studies, she has come to view the CCAC’s position in a different light.
“They’re looking more and more credible,” she says. On the BAWSCA board since June 2005, she says board members “went from … thinking that these (CCAC) speakers were crackpots to gradually thinking, you know, they have a point here.”
Now, she says, the board wants the SFPUC “to sit up and take notice of this and to take this seriously. … This is an important human health topic and we need to get to the bottom of it.”
The Ruskin bill
The BAWSCA board is also in full support of Assemblyman’s Ruskin’s bill, AB 2402, which has advanced to the Assembly’s fiscal committee. The outcome of that committee’s deliberations are expected to be known by the end of May, says Caroll Mortensen, chief consultant for the Environmental Safety Committee.The bill authorizes studies to “identify potentially dangerous drinking water disinfection byproducts and their persistence in the environment,” and to identify and develop alternatives to chemical disinfectants.
It also would make data and analysis resulting from the studies available on the Internet “to create a one-stop shop for people to find pros and cons of all kinds of chemical disinfections,” Ms. Mortensen explains.
The studies, she notes would be costly. But even if the bill doesn’t clear the fiscal committee, “The issue is still of great [importance] to Mr. Ruskin,” she adds. “Even if something bad happens to the bill, it doesn’t mean he isn’t going to continue studying the issue.”
Mr. Winnicker of the SFPUC says his agency “absolutely supports the bill. We’re always interested in the most recent and thorough information about water quality.”
Symptoms
Meanwhile, public officials urge people who think they are having reactions to chloramine to see their doctors and, if the doctor links the symptoms to the additive, send a report to the appropriate public health officials.That list of people would include the 200-plus who have contacted CCAC to report their symptoms, such as Betty West of Portola Valley. A resident of The Sequoias senior community, Ms. West had a severe skin reaction after using a Jacuzzi around the time chloramine was added to the water.
Her doctor could find no apparent cause, and she’s convinced that the welts and other skin conditions she developed in those days are the direct result of chloramine.
Now, she collects water in pails on her deck to wash her hair, and she uses bottled water for drinking and bathing. She’s also given up eating rice and cereal cooked with chloraminated water and served in The Sequoias’ dining hall.
She says she heads to her family home in San Jose more weekends than she otherwise would just to enjoy the chloramine-free water.
The list also includes Ken Russo, a tradesman from South San Francisco who says chloraminated water caused both respiratory and skin problems.
His is a grimy business, he says, and in the past he enjoyed his long hot showers to wash away the dirt and sweat. Now, “I’ve reduced my showers, and don’t suffer as much from skin rashes and breathing problems.”
Alphabet soup
SFPUC: The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which manages water from the Hetch Hetchy system, delivering it to San Francisco and three Bay Area counties.BAWSCA: Bay Area Water Supply and Conservation Agency, which represents 26 cities and water districts receiving water from the SFPUC.
CCAC: Citizens Concerned About Chloramine, leading the grassroots effort to remove chloramine from the water supply until more research is done to determine its short- and long-term health effects. Denise Johnson-Kula of Menlo Park is president.
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