Chlorine and Drinking Water: Here's to Your Health

When unprecedented floods ravaged the Midwest in 1993, chlorine emerged as one of the heroes of the relief effort, bringing safe water back to hundreds of thousands of residents along the Mississippi River.

Whether coming to the rescue of natural disaster victims or providing clean and safe water for everyday use, chlorine's water disinfection capabilities are unmatched. In fact, were it not for chlorine, "water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink" would be more than an old saying; it would be a fact of life -- and death -- for people throughout the world.

Although three-quarters of the Earth's surface is water, only one percent is available for human consumption . . . and that one percent often contains hundreds of microorganisms that may cause life-threatening waterborne diseases such as cholera, typhoid and dysentery. Fortunately, since 1908, when chlorine was first used on a large scale in the U.S. to purify drinking water, these epidemic diseases have been virtually wiped out in our country.

Today, 98 percent of U.S. public water supplies that are disinfected are made clean and safe with chlorine or chlorine-based compounds. More than 200 million Americans rely on chlorine every day to give them safe water for everything from brushing their teeth and making their morning orange juice and coffee to cooking, washing, cleaning, swimming and, of course, drinking.

Chlorine: The Essential Element

Just as water is essential to life, chlorine is essential to safe water. Public health officials overwhelmingly agree:

• a dramatic decline in infant mortality rates; and

• the virtual elimination of cholera, typhoid fever, dysentery and gastroenteritis, as well as many other waterborne diseases which once killed tens of thousands of Americans.

Many Uses, Many Benefits

Chlorination is the only water disinfection method that protects all the way to the tap, for just pennies a day. But chlorine does much more than kill deadly germs and microorganisms in the nation's water supply. Chlorine also:

• effectively controls microorganisms such as slime bacteria, molds, algae, and fungi that tend to grow on the walls in transmission mains and treatment basins

• keeps water pipes and filters free from dirt

• eliminates or reduces organic coloration

• destroys hydrogen sulfide and removes ammonia and other compounds that have unpleasant tastes and impede disinfection.

Our water supply benefits from chlorine in another way. Corrosion-resistant polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipe, which is made from chlorine, protects our water supply by significantly decreasing leaks in public drinking water systems.

Coming to the Rescue in Natural Disasters

Chlorine's potent germ-killing qualities are used extensively throughout the world to provide safe drinking water to areas suffering from floods and hurricanes, which wash high levels of microorganisms into existing water sources.

Chlorine brought safe drinking water back to victims of the Midwest floods in 1993.

In 1991, local drinking water supplies in New Bedford, Massachusetts were contaminated by high levels of bacteria as a result of Hurricane Bob. Increased levels of chlorine corrected the tainted water.

When tropical storm Thelma devastated the Philippines and contaminated its water supply in 1991, large shipments of chlorine were among the first relief supplies to reach that country.

Relief During National Disasters

Chlorine plays a vital role in providing relief during national disasters. Airlifts of chlorinated water purification chemicals, for example, were distributed to hospitals, clinics and refugee centers in the civil war-torn Russian republic of Chechnya. Without such aid, Chechnyans could have faced a fate similar to the thousands of Rwandan refugees who died during a cholera epidemic in that country.

Safe Drinking Water: A Benefit Not to Be Taken for Granted

Without chlorine, nine out of 10 public health officials agree, the risk of waterborne disease outbreaks in the US would increase significantly. Although most Americans never think about getting sick or dying from drinking water, it is still a sad fact of life in many developing countries.

More than 1.5 billion people around the globe do not have access to safe drinking water, and diseases associated with dirty water kill more than 25,000 people per day -- more than 9 million each year -- around the world, according to the World Health Organization. Chlorinated water supplies could have helped save thousands of lives that were lost during recent typhoid and cholera outbreaks in Latin America and Africa.

Thanks to chlorine, these deadly diseases are just a memory in this country. Americans are very fortunate to have had the benefits of a water supply made clean and safe with chlorine for more than 80 years. The next time you turn on the tap, rest easy; chlorine is there protecting your health.

Chlorine Chemistry Council^® Brochure
November 1995