You are your food intake and by extension, drink. However, recent coverage from the North Texas Municipal Water District's chlorine burn, which ended on March 26, has everyone worried about the caliber of their water. Without getting into the nitty gritty, the large names hanging around are: chlorine, chloramine, trihalomethanes, and lead. While, according to Texas state guidelines, certain levels of these chemicals is protected to drink, personally, I'd would rather not have access to them in my water, thanks to you!
However, a fast search on the internet will disclose how hard it is to find items that will reliably reduce these contaminants. Lots of products make big claims but finding the evidence to support those claims is frustrating. Fret no more because at the corner of Park and Preston you'll find TreeHouse Plano, a place which has several choices for purification and has done the study for you personally.
Full disclosure: I'm an employee of TreeHouse Plano, a house upgrade company focused on making homes sustainable, healthy, and beautiful. Having clean water on your own, your family, your pets, as well as your appliances is very important and frequently overlooked. I've personally helped lots of people over the last few weeks find solutions to their water needs and this most recent water drama has heightened the general public awareness over water quality. I've even talked to a woman who told me her dog won't even drink the water. When Fido won't drink the plain tap water then there's definitely an issue!
Chlorine? Chloramine? Trihalomethanes? Lead!?
Chlorine may be the disinfectant which was used during the chlorine burn conducted through the North Texas Municipal Water District that lasted from February 16th to March 26th.
Chloramine may be the disinfectant the North Texas Municipal Water District (NTMWD) normally uses to disinfect our water. Chloramine is chlorine plus ammonia. Chloramine lasts within the system longer than chlorine and therefore its disinfecting power lasts longer too. That isn't the only reason the NTMWD and other municipal water districts have switched from chlorine to chloramine through the years. Chloramine produces less regulated disinfection by-products (DBPs) than chlorine does so it is much easier for these water districts to comply with EPA regulations on DBPs.
Trihalomethanes (THMs) are a sub-group of disinfection by-products. The EPA regulates four specific THMs: chloroform, bromoform, bromodichloromethane, dibromochloromethane. These chemicals are made as a by-product when chlorine and/or chloramine act on organic matter, i.e. disinfect, hence why they are called disinfection by-products. So yes, if you were wondering, these are inside your water! However, the EPA regulates them at 80 parts per billion which to set up perspective would be about 80 drops within an olympic-sized swimming pool. The most recent testing released by NTMWD showed THM levels at 54 parts per billion for Plano. Now remember how I mentioned they were the regulated chemicals? There are hundreds of disinfection by-products made by chlorination/chloramination that are not regulated through the EPA. These emerging unregulated DBPs (source) might be much more toxic than the current regulated ones and chloramine might produce these in higher quantities than chlorine.
Last but not least, is lead. Water districts have to add more pipe corrosion inhibitor towards the water supply because chloramine-treated water is much more corrosive than chlorine-treated water.
Is the water safe to drink?
This question is like the organic versus non-organic food debate. The non-organic foods we discover on the market in the supermarket happen to be FDA-approved and therefore are therefore, technically, safe to consume. Nevertheless, they do contain chemicals. Whether you decide to ingest these chemicals can be you. You have to our water.
The following is an excerpt from the Facebook post published by the City of Plano (view the full post here) to deal with concerns about the water given by North Texas Municipal Water District:
\”The City of Plano hired a completely independent lab to conduct water tests March 22-23, throughout the final times of its northern border Texas Municipal Water District's (NTMWD) 28-day Chlorine Maintenance Program.
Those results (shown here) returned as we anticipated, showing the drinking water we receive from NTMWD is totally safe. The chlorination process commonly produces byproducts, including two groups of chemicals referred to as Trihalomethanes or THMs and Haloacetic acids (HAAs). THMs and HAAs form when chlorine responds to natural organic matter within the water.
All 16 sites recently tested in Plano fall below state requirements for water quality.\”
In essence, the water received by the City of Plano from the North Texas Municipal Water District does meet state requirements.
Water filters
The great news is, TreeHouse offers a solution for just about any kind of situation and the products the following reduce all the aforementioned chemicals: chlorine, chloramine, trihalomethanes, and lead.
Berkey water filter
If you are searching for a point-of-use means to fix your water filtration needs, then I recommend the Berkey gravity-fed water filter. The testing on the Berkey filters is extensive and contains proven effective at reducing organic and inorganic chemicals, microbes and viruses, even radiation! Berkey performance data are available in the Berkey base of knowledge.
The TreeHouse Plano break room hosts a 4 gallon Royal Berkey and also the whole team is a huge fan from the clean, crisp taste of the water. You can easily refill and extremely low maintenance. Each Berkey comes with two Black Berkey Elements that continue for 3,000 gallons each providing you with 6,000 gallons of filtering power right out of the box. The bigger size Berkeys fit more elements enabling you to have more filtering power and a higher filter rate. An average family of four consuming eight cups each day per person would get eight many years of filtered water out of the box! This arrives to around two cents per gallon. The Berkey filters reduce lead, chlorine, chloramine, and THMs by 99% according to testing conducted by Envirotek Laboratories, Inc. (It should be noted the Department of Agricultural Commissioner of the County of La found the filters to lessen lead by 97% and chlorine by 85%.)
Another product you might be interested in is a shower filter. Has the skin ever felt dry following a shower? Includes a hot steamy shower ever left your chest feeling weird or provoked your asthma? Then you need likely absorbed or inhaled chlorine during the shower. This is also true if you like hot showers (and who doesn't?) Chlorine is sufficiently small to vaporize in steamy showers and be absorbed by your skin. Purchasing a Berkey Shower filter was the best decision I've made to date in 2023. Cellular phone was increasingly simple (about 3 minutes) and that i was able to use my shower immediately following a fast 5-minute activation period. I noticed a difference right away. My skin am soft after you have from the shower which i actually stopped moisturizing for some weeks! My hands glowed and were as soft like a baby's rump. Even my hair was silkier! It had been magical! The shower filter lasts for one year and can filter 95% of free chlorine throughout the 1st month by the 12th month it'll filter 50 – 75% of free chlorine. This is extremely good for a baby shower filter as the majority of the shower filters available on the market need to be replaced every two – three months. The filter will also reduce lead and organic material like bacteria and mildew. My shower stays cleaner for longer and soap scum builds up much slower on my small glass shower doors.
Aquasana
TreeHouse Plano also provides over-the-counter and underneath the counter filtration by Aquasana. These reduce chlorine and chloramine by at least 96%, lead by 99%, and THMs by 95%. The under the counter filters include faucets in various finishes: polished nickel, chrome, and oil-rubbed bronze. Filters need to be changed at least two times a year.
For a whole-home solution, look no farther than Aquasana's Chloramine 400,000 gallon filter. The kodak playtouch camcorder relies on a bed of catalytic carbon to effectively reduce chloramine. The kodak playtouch camcorder will reduce 99.7% of chloramine at the beginning of its lifespan and 76.5% at the end of its lifespan. The system will last for 400,000 gallons for 4 years.
Each home is different with regards to installation and so i recommend contacting TreeHouse so we can hook you up having a performance consultant who can answer all your questions about how whole home filtration are installed.
TREEHOUSE, PLANO
2201 Preston Rd., Plano. (Next door to Whole-foods at Park and Preston.)
(214) 838-3687
plano@tree.house
plano.treehouse.com