chloramines in HMUA water
I am an aquarist and I tested the HMUA tap water recently and found 2 PPM of NH3 (ammonia) in the water. apparently the HMUA is using chloramine to decontaminate our water.
Chloramine is a combination of chlorine and ammonia.
http://water.epa.gov/lawsregs/rulesregs/sdwa/mdbp/chloramines_index.cfm
this can have drastic effects on your health and plumbing - not to mention your aquarium
http://www.chloramine.org/effectsonplumbing.htm
its less effictive then chlorine and 100x more toxic.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/stop-use-of-chloramine-in-drinking-water/
please make sure that you filter your water.
skippy 
pampur 
terk The HMUA does not use chloramines for water disinfection. The HMUA uses chlorine as a disinfectant as a preventative measure against any microorganisms that may be present in the source water. Use of a disinfectant in public water systems is required by the State of New Jersey to insure that the water is safe for public consumption. If you would like additional information about the water in Hackettstown, there are a wealth of helpful facts available on the HMUA website (www.hmua.com) and the HMUA Facebook page.
HTownMan just curious, is this possible without notice/warning/being informed?
I am sure it is happening but how is this allowable?
gardens 
happy2bhere I agree that my water has stunk of chlorine for the past few months. It not only stinks, but it burns my eyes when I shower. I too will be contacting HMUA about this.
SomeoneThe EPA link you provided states that Chloramination is safe and reduces the regulated disinfectant byproducts.
As of 2011, no ammonia was reported in the HMUA Water Quality Report:
http://www.hmua.com/doc/2011-water-quality-report.pdf
One possible explanation I saw was that ammonia is a byproduct from fertilizers entering the water supply. I would think they'd be filtered out somehow by HMUA, but maybe it's possible they pass through the system?
justintime My goldfish love the water! Been living in it for months. No complaints either.
Your eyes burn in the shower? What do you do stand there with your eyes open under the water?
The original post says there is ammonia gas, not chloramines in the water. How did that leap happen? Ammonia is generally removed, but it depends on how much there was to begin with how much is removed. How was the water tested? What other levels of chlorine were detected? What was the testing method?
GC I've always been suspicious of the HMUA water quality reports... far too many of the "contaminants" seem to be at the upper limit allowable...
I filter the drinking water, but I cook from the tap (I don't use water much while cooking), and my dog gets tap water. Maybe he shouldn't.
If the HMUA's QC is actually as poor as the QC that went into the "repairs" in Diamond Hill, that would be alarming.
JeffersonRepub Drink quarts of HMUA water daily. Just fill the glass/bottle, etc and let it sit for 10 seconds. All the chlorine odor will disappear. I'll bet if I put a glass of HMUA water in front of you and a glass of bottled water, within a minute you would be hard pressed to tell the difference. I know where the HMUA water wells are located, but do you know where the bottled water comes from? Not Poland I'll guarantee. For $19.00 a quarter, I will continue to bathe in HMUA water, drink HMUA water, and my animals love it. 18 yr old cat and 10 yr old large dog.
Ms Fishy Chloramine (as CI2) is a water additive used to control microbes, particularly as a residual disinfectant in distribution system pipes. It is formed when ammonia is added to water containing free chlorine. Monochloramine is one form of chloramines commonly used for disinfection by municipal water systems. Other chloramines (di- and tri-) are not intentionally used to disinfect drinking water and are generally not formed during the drinking water disinfection process. This is added as 4 milligrams per liter (mg/L) or 4 parts per million (ppm). (Guess what level of NO3 was evident in my test...)
Chloromine is just chlorine and ammonia. "Aging" the water (letting it sit exposed to air) is also useless for removing chloramine. If you use anything to break the chloramine bond - ergo activated charcoal all you are doing is removing the free chlorine and you are left with ammonia. The latest report on the HMUA website is from 2011 so it is not necessarily relevant to this discussion
Public water systems using surface water or ground water under the direct influence of surface water are required to maintain a detectible disinfectant residual in the distribution system - Free chlorine doesn't really do that well. Most water systems in NJ - especially post Sandy - are using chloramines now.
http://www.epa.gov/ogwdw/disinfection/chloramine/pdfs/chloramine2.pdf
Bottled water is dependent on the type of water and type of purification. Generally, they filter the water through one or more purifications including: reverse osmosis, ultraviolet light, distillation, micron filtration and ozonation. The water itself may be spring or just purified from any source. None of these methods uses chlorine and only ozonation adds a chemical (ozone gas).
Two of the amazing safety stats probably go to bottled water and bagged salads. The mfgs. have much to gain, much to loss in the safety process. While the EPA and NJDEP "protects" HMUA water, the FDA protects bottled water along with the mfgs. and state agencies.
HMUA uses a much less costly purification than the bottlers: chemicals, mostly chlorine but they don't list the chemicals they put in, just the quality that comes out. And they don't list the byproducts that might be included in the chlorine. Now, where's the fluoride?
You can match bottled water with HMUA water by adding a reverse osmosis device to your supply. Cost is $100 to $500.
But if you wonder what can be done with chemicals; I can take a pea green pool and make it crystal clear and clean in 48-hours.
mistergoogle Potassium tetraiodomercurate reagent test was used to measure the ammonia level (Nessler's reagent) - its only a spot test, however it can detect 0.3 (Mu)g NH3 in 2 (Mu)L.
I detected 2PPM at a Ph of 7.8
I started filtering the water a while ago, could never handle the chlorine. Don't feel like carting cases of water and risking plastic bottle chemicals either.
I'd also read a report about water "quality" in areas with hospitals ... the chemicals have to go somewhere, and there is that push for people not to dispose of medications down the commode ...
What people's systems can get rid of as far as contaminants, pets cannot, they're just too small, so my fur friends get filtered water too.
Articles from 2009, New York Times series on Toxic Waters:
For Hackettstown:
http://projects.nytimes.com/toxic-waters/contaminants/nj/warren/nj2108001-hackettstown-mua
http://www.ewg.org/tap-water/whatsinyourwater2/NJ/hackettstown-mua/2108001/
Multiple articles: http://projects.nytimes.com/toxic-waters
redmink1 "Chloramine is not a persistent disinfectant and decomposes easily from a chemistry point of view (Valentine et al, 1998) but for water supply purposes chloramine is stable and it takes days to dissipate in the absence of substances exerting chloramine demand (Wilczak et al., 2003b). Therefore, it is not practical to remove chloramine by letting an open container of water stand because it may take days for chloramine to dissipate. However, chloramine is very easily and almost instantaneously removed by preparing a cup of tea or coffee, preparing food (e.g., making a soup with a chicken stock). Adding fruit to a water pitcher (e.g., slicing peeled orange into a 1-gal water pitcher) will neutralize chloramine within 30 minutes. If desired, chloramine and ammonia can be completely removed from the water by boiling; however, it will take 20 minutes of gentle boil to do that. Just a short boil of water to prepare tea or coffee removed about 30% of chloramine. Conversely, chlorine was not as consistently removed by boiling in tests. If desired, both chlorine and chloramine can be removed for drinking water purposes by an activated carbon filter point of use device that can be installed on a kitchen faucet. If desired, both chlorine and chloramine can be removed for bathing purposes by dissolving Vitamin C in the bath water (1000 mg Vitamin C tablet will neutralize chloramine in an average bathtub)."
quoted from http://www.sfwater.org/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=957
Dear HMUA Water Customers,
First let me state that the Hackettstown MUA does NOT use chloramines for disinfection. Chlorine is used to disinfect the HMUA water supply to produce a measureable free chlorine residual as a safeguard against potential bacteriological contamination. The EPA and NJDEP maximum contaminant level for chlorine in drinking water is 4.0 parts per million (ppm). The chlorine levels in HMUA water range from 0.35 to 0.45 ppm, or 10 times lower than the limit.
Secondly, let me respectfully request that individuals refrain from posting erroneous or unsubstantiated statements on the Hackettstown Life Forum regarding the safety of our drinking water supply. Safe drinking water has always been paramount to the HMUA, and we take our business very seriously. False and misleading statements can create unnecessary alarm to our customers. An overwhelming majority of HMUA employees are also customers who use our water daily. To think that we would not provide the highest possible service is absurd.
We encourage any of our customers with questions or concerns to contact us. We would gladly sit down with anyone and present the facts about the quality of your water. A small amount of research can go a long way.
John C. Perry
Deputy Director
Hackettstown Municipal Utilities Authority
424 Hurley Drive, Hackettstown 07840
(908) 852-3622
John Perry ok I stand corrected. however. there are certainly detectable amounts of ammonia in the tap water. NH3 + free chlorine = chlormine.
Thank you Mr.Perry for your reply and putting to rest the false statements made in this thread.
Sadly speculation and inaccurate information coupled with all sorts baseless "facts" is often tossed out on these online forums as factual data.
Greg 
sm If you have test results that show detectable amounts of ammonia in our drinking water, then post a copy of the lab report or provide us with a copy of the analysis. If you are using a test strip kit for a pool, spa or fishtank, then we need to question the accuracy. The HMUA uses NJ State certified laboratories and EPA approved detection methods for all of our testing. Any $5 sample kit from Walmart or a pool supply store does not measure anything near the detection levels or accuracy of a gas chromatograph, spectrophotometer, atomic absorbtion analyzer, etc. They also suffer from interference.
There is also a reference above that states, “(Guess what level of NO3 was evident in my test...)”.NO3 is nitrate, not ammonia. Nitrate is present in drinking water in low concentrations from natural sources and is reported in the HMUA Consumer Confidence Report every year. Check the HMUA website and you can view a history of any our reports.
I do not wish to engage in a debate in an online forum where individuals are free to post anything behind the cloak of anonymity, so this is most likely the last time I will address this matter here. If you have any questions or concerns, please call our office at 908-852-3622 and we will gladly answer your questions and give you the facts.
Respectfully yours,
John Perry
John - how about you post a water report thats not 18 months old. I meant NH3 not NO3 - my error. in any regard I stated a Potassium tetraiodomercurate reagent test was used to measure the ammonia level (not a $5 test from walmart) if you or anyone from HMUA has gas chromatography that's recent (hence better than 2011) post it on your website or here, or someplace. I can prove that theres NH3 in my tap water...
"NH3 + free chlorine = chlormine." - Even after correcting what I think you mean as "chloramine", this is a misunderstanding of what you're seeing. If the ammonia is detected, then it has not been consumed in a reaction with any chlorine. If you want to know about chloramine in the water, you have to test for chloramine.
That said, if there is some ammonia in your water, get John to work with you and have your water tested. Perhaps the source is other than HMUA in your house, and needs to be addressed. Part of the question I asked wasn't just what test, but the collection methods and analysis. You'll need to have a lab test done.
skippy, how about you go to the HMUA office talk to Mr.Perry as he stated above if you have any other questions.
I don't smell or taste anything. Besides, I don't drink water and the water I use is filtered.
The only way to get pure H2O is to use a distilling unit.
Dick Whitman Waste water needs aqueous ammonia to keep the water bears out of your sludge.
One-Eyed Poacher John Perry,
What you said and your intentions could be true, but the result is different.
I have people from Independence twp, who confirmed that the tap water smells and tastes "nasty". The normal, pure (clean) water is tasteless. The water HMUA supplies is only a half of "equation", the other "half" is the plumbing in the houses.
We, the consumers, don't even know the quality of drinking water...
Pyc john, we appreciate the comment but let's be serious...
you said:
"Secondly, let me respectfully request that individuals refrain from posting erroneous or unsubstantiated statements on the Hackettstown Life Forum regarding the safety of our drinking water supply."
so it someone says they tested their water and it tested positive for ammonia...you're telling him to sit on his hands and not to worry?! Roxbury residents cried foul immediately when the Fenimore landfill dump reopened illegally and the DEP is still telling people that everything is fine as the town gets destroyed by hydrogen sulfur, sulfur dioxide, asbestos, lead, and god knows what else is in the air and leaching into the water supply.
But hey, an employee told us not to worry and don't report it! Nonsense.
Commenting is no longer available.