Why Is There Chlorine in My Drinking Water?
In this vlog, we’d like to share with you a little bit of history about the use of chlorine in drinking water. When the United States entered into the industrial era, the City of Paterson was considered one of industry’s most promising hubs. The silk and other large manufacturing operations were growing at leaps and bounds. Immigrant workers were used to produce many many items. These people lived in their communities with multiple family members, relatives and friends sharing apartments and homes to save money and realize the American dream.
Unfortunately, at the time, the sewage systems were not perfected or even created. The drinking water ran from the local Passaic River into their homes and their waste was washed back into the same river. This awful cycle produced many diseases and untimely deaths for many.
The practice at the time was that the city’s physician would be the one responsible for cleaning the homes of those that passed from the disease (in order to keep records and maintain control of the disease). During the time of Paterson’s industrial explosion, Alexander Hamilton (yes, the same guy on the $10 bill), hired Dr. John Leal as the city’s physician.
What Dr. Leal found was that cleaning the homes with chlorine bleach helped to arrest the spread of the diseases. As a test, he added a trace amount of chlorine to the drinking water and determined that it was helping to clean the water enough to deter the diseases from spreading.
This practice is still very common and used today but in very scientific and specific ways. Trace, safe amounts of chlorine are being added to your water; however, it is not necessary to ingest chlorine today. Therefore, if you’d prefer to reduce or eliminate chlorine from your water, the best course of action is to install a water filtration system.
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