February 25, 2014
Tuesday AM

The Poughkeepsie N.Y. Water Treatment Facility, which at the time served the village where I live, Wappingers Falls, N.Y.,  switched from chlorine to chloramine on October 26, 2006.  I immediately started having serious reactions to my new water. From showering with it, I began having painful blistery  “rashes” on my skin, which only got worse with each shower. I assumed that I needed to replace the Vitamin C insert in my shower filter, but I still had problems after replacing it.  I later learned that Vitamin C works well in neutralizing chlorine, but it is ineffective for chloramine.  Pretty soon I began having other health issues. I had constant heartburn from drinking and cooking with my tap water. Also I developed breathing problems and began wheezing and struggling to breathe from inhaling the steam in my shower.

Twice in December of 2006 I experienced severe swelling of my eyes and throat.  My left eye was swollen shut on each occasion because water had run into my eyes during a shower. During the second incident, my face and throat were so swollen that I was afraid my breathing passages would be constricted.  I drove to the emergency ward, and they monitored me for four hours while administering medication to open my breathing passages.

I decided to stop using my tap water in order to alleviate my symptoms, and began using only bottled spring water for drinking, washing and cooking my food, and brewing coffee and tea. I began bathing with heated bottled water, and my symptoms began improving.  Three to four weeks later I was symptom-free.  From time to time I'd drink water or a cup of coffee at a local restaurant,  and the heartburn would return.  Or when I ran out of bottled water I’d take a shorter, cooler shower using my tap water, and my skin would start burning and itching again.  As long as I stayed away from the chloraminated tap water I was fine.

I had to continue washing my hands and dishes using tap water though, and my hands continued to be extremely dry and painful, with blistery rashes developing between my fingers.

I got together with some other people in my water system who had also developed skin, respiratory and/or digestive symptoms from our chloraminated tap water. We collected stories from people in our area who were experiencing the same symptoms we were, and presented the information to the City of Poughkeepsie Water Board and our Dutchess County Legislature. These are the same symptoms people using chloraminated water are experiencing  across the country.   But it’s much harder to have something removed than to prevent it from being used in the first place.  In the end, chloramine was removed from our water, but it was not due to our efforts.  Poughkeepsie had to stop using chloramine because they could not resolve the problem of high lead levels in our water, which was due to the use of chloramine.

Based on my own experiences with chloramine, I strongly recommend that the citizens in Ketchikan fight hard to keep chloramine from coming into your water.  It became a local nightmare when it was in my water.

Yours truly,

Chris Merando
Wappingers Falls, N.Y.

Received February 23, 2014 - Published February 25, 2014

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