Having a reliable municipal water supply is great. We can count on getting water flowing from the tap around the clock, whenever we need it. Plus, the water has already been treated by the city. Yet there are still a few concerns surrounding city-treated water.
No matter where you’re located in the country, it’s a good idea to put some extra safety precautions in place for your family’s water. We have the convenience of city tap water. The next step is to make it even better with powerful, point-of-use water filtration.
Start with the Carmel Water Quality Report
Indy Soft Water is based in Carmel, Indiana. So naturally, we pay close attention to our local water quality reports. We’re very appreciative that the City of Carmel Water Quality Report is proactive and voluntarily tests for PFAs as part of our municipal water quality report. These “forever” chemicals have been linked to serious health issues even at low levels, and it’s critical that we all remain diligent to keep these contaminants out of our drinking water.
The fact that Carmel tested and found PFAs is both encouraging and also deeply concerning. It’s important to have solid information about our drinking water. Then we can take the right steps to making it even safer.
Studying the Carmel Water Report yourself, or your own local water quality report, can give you some key insights into the high and low ranges of a variety of water concerns. Whether that’s heavy metals like copper and lead in your water, or PFAs that can cause cancer and problems with reproductive health, knowing what’s been found in your local tap water will help alert you to areas for improvement. Technically, there may not be any “violations” for your water quality, like here in the Carmel Water Quality Report, but if you consider the system wide average and maximum measurements, the risks may not fit your own definition of what’s safe for your family.
The other problem we can run into with city-treated water is that the process relies heavily on chlorine as a disinfectant. Adding chlorine to our municipal tap water is the city’s solution to preventing the spread of waterborne diseases by killing bacteria and other pathogens. However, this method has some significant drawbacks.
The Trouble with Chlorine and Trihalomethanes (THMs)
While there’s no denying that chlorine is effective as a disinfectant against parasites, bacteria, and viruses, it’s not exactly something we want to be consuming in our drinking water. What’s more, the presence of free chlorine in our tap water can end up reacting with organic matter in the water, forming disinfection byproducts (DBPs) such as trihalomethanes (THMs). This is a problem because long-term exposure to THMs and elevated blood levels have been linked to an increased risk of cancer, as well as adverse reproductive outcomes.
The discovery of THMs in our drinking water as a result of chlorine was first noted back in 1974. To counter these concerns, the Environmental Protection Agency amended its drinking water regulations to put a maximum allowable limit of 0.08 mg/L for total trihalomethanes. For some, though, even that contaminant level seems too high, which is where home water filtration and chlorine removal come into play.
It’s important to remember that the city water treatment process is only able to take care of certain criteria. For example, a reverse osmosis system can effectively eliminate a wide range of contaminants including heavy metals (lead, mercury, arsenic), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and certain pharmaceuticals and pesticides. Whereas in general, the conventional water treatment process that the City of Carmel is using can’t fully remove those types of tricky contaminants. It might reduce concentrations, but it’s just not as effective as a complete reverse osmosis system for drinking water.
Not only that, your tap water taste, color, and odor tend to fall outside the responsibility of the city water treatment process. So if you’re wondering “why does my water smell like bleach,” it’s probably because your water’s odor falls under an “aesthetic consideration,” otherwise known as a “secondary standard” outlined by the EPA. As such, the utilities companies aren’t required to meet any particular guidelines. That goes for your water’s iron levels, water pH, and water hardness too. But that doesn’t mean we want to have cloudy, smelly, hard water at our tap!
Water Filtration Solutions That Remove Chlorine
With your own filtration solution, you can eliminate the chances of coming into contact with all sorts of water contaminants, including chlorine and THMs. The right setup can also take care of heavy metals, forever chemicals, and even Cryptosporidium and Giardia, which themselves are resistant to chlorine. That’s just one reason why we shouldn’t rely on the municipal water treatment process alone. We can make our water safer—and tastier!—by taking a multi-faceted approach.
You can remove THMs from your drinking water with activated carbon. The good news is that it’s super simple, but also powerful. This process, otherwise known as adsorption, can be effective with either powdered activated carbon or granular activated carbon. If a carbon filter or whole home filter sounds expensive or super involved, rest assured, it’s not. It works just like a water softener, but with a special media of bituminous coal carbon. The carbon media remove those undesirable elements, and you can start enjoying clean, contaminant-free, chlorine-free water every day.
By choosing a chlorine removal system for your home, you not only end that ongoing problem of “my water smells like bleach.” You’ll also be keeping your family safer.
At Indy Soft Water, we’re big fans of the Nelsen Activated Carbon Filtration Solution because it tackles all sorts of water quality concerns simultaneously. Once installed, you get a solution that removes PFAs, as well as chlorine, chloramines, and THMs that show up in the Carmel Water Quality Report. Even better, the system works to improve the taste of your water, all while prolonging the lifespan of your water softener too!
A custom water filtration solution helps ensure you have safe, clean, and delicious water all throughout your home or place of business. Our team can make it happen! If you have questions about your own Central Indiana water quality report or the latest stats on the Carmel water quality, please don’t hesitate to reach out by sending us a quick message.
We can even schedule a time to come out to your property for an in-home water assessment to really give you all the facts. With options for water system service, sales, and even water filter and water softener rentals, we’re here to help!
