Glenn Reynolds sometimes posts the oddest shit, makes a personal comment regarding it, and pretty much leaves you wondering, “huh?”
Maybe he ought to read this about that.
My best guess is that if his niece had an allergic reaction to chlorine fumes, one or more of the following were the case:
– The pool had recently been shocked due to a fecal incident.
– The pool was just plain over-chlorinated.
– The ventilation of the room was sub-optimal.
My wife works daily in an indoor pool (two indoor pools, actually), and while you certainly get the scent of chlorine in the air, it doesn’t overwhelm you. I can vouch for the fact, though, that one of the pools used to use an older system for chlorination that not only smelled much worse, but left Sally herself smelling like chlorine until she showered. When they switched that pool to a more modern liquid chlorine system, it made a noticeable difference. They also replaced the ventilation system in that pool room a couple of years ago and that cut the odor even more.
Sally did once have a nasty reaction to the bromine they used to use in the hot tubs, but that was also changed to liquid chlorine after a number of people had skin issues from it. No problems since then that I know of (and she would have told me).
When I read the article Glenn linked to, I was unimpressed (most greenie blogs strike me that way — all emotion, little actual science). The one research link inside that article appeared to go to a site maintained by a professor at some university who has a feather up his butt about the dangers of chlorine. What intrigued me was that with the exception of one paper he cited that was published in 2003, all of the papers he cited were a decade or more old.
Bottom line: If you want people to get sick and die, stop chlorinating water.
Otherwise, you are invited to STFU.
(I will make the point that I believe Veolia Water heavily over-chlorinates city water in Indianapolis. When the shower room smells like a swimming pool after running water for a couple of minutes, they’re putting way too much chlorine into the system.)
2 Replies to “I don’t get it.”
Comments are closed.
I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that there are adverse effects to the use of chlorine in drinking water and pools. However I have enough perspective to realize that the benefits of chlorine being used properly far outweigh any adverse effects.
Hygiene advances like chlorinated water mean health advantages that we all take for granted. When was the last outbreak of typhoid in the United States?
Indeed. From the other side, I have a friend whose doctor told her to buy a chlorine-filtering showerhead and to avoid swimming pools. But on the other hand, she has lupus, and anything that keeps it from flaring is a good thing. There’s no pressing need for Joe Random Homeowner whose family is in good health to rush off to Lowe’s or that orange place to buy that kind of product.
In point of fact, fluoridation of drinking water is probably more dangerous than chlorination. Fluorine is a nasty little molecule, a known carcinogen. Yet (and even after concerted efforts by biological Luddites in the ’60’s and ’70’s to put a stop to it) we continue to add it to city water systems, and dentists continue to put fluoride on kids’ and even adults’ teeth as a cavity-fighter, and encourage the use of fluoridated toothpastes ditto.
As you say, and as I imply, the benefits usually outweigh any untoward effects, which are generally few and far between, and mitigated easily enough.