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Residents alerted to chlorine contaminants in village water

By Colin DeVries

CATSKILL — The ever-improving Village of Catskill has issued a notice indicating that the village water system has an inordinately high concentration of contaminants from chlorine.

The New York State Department of Health determined that their was an average of 62.1 parts per billion (ppb) of total haloacetic acids for the second quarter of 2008. The maximum contaminant level (MCL) is 60 ppb.

According to a statement issued by the village and the Department of Health, haloacetic acids are formed in drinking water during treatment by chlorine, which react with certain acids that are in naturally occurring organic material in surface water, such as rivers and lakes. Organic material may include decomposing vegetation such as tree leaves, algae or other aquatic plants.

Additionally, the issued statement indicates that “some studies of people who drank chlorinated drinking water for 20 to 30 years show that long term exposure to disinfection by-products (possibly including haloacetic acids) is associated with an increased risk for certain types of cancer.”

The studies are flawed, however, in that it does not indicate how long or how often people actually drank the water. They also do not specifically identify how much haloacetic acid the water contained.

While the amount of haloacetic acid in drinking water can change from day to day, the implementation of chlorine into the water system is beneficial for public health. Without the disinfectant qualities of chlorine, other bacteria and viruses that infiltrate the water supply could cause serious illness.

The Village of Catskill has already taken the appropriate steps to solve this problem as soon as possible. A new chlorine injection system has been out to bid for several weeks.

“We hoped to have it up and running by June,” said Trustee Joseph Kozloski, adding, “it should be ready in the next two or three months.”

The new chlorination system was intended to supplement the installation of a new million-gallon water tank on Hamburg Road, though it is unclear when construction of that project will begin.

Consumers that have questions on the concentrations of these disinfectant by-products can contact John Shultz, water treatment plant operator, at 518-945-1839, or Terry Emmitt, Matt Currey or Shane Finch of the Oneonta District Office of the New York State Department of Health at 607-432-3911.

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