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Concern has been growing in recent years about thequality and reliability of water treatment chemicals.These uncertainties have been perpetuated bycontamination incidents that received significant publicattention, and they continue as emerging contaminationissues arise. This article describes a comprehensivenational investigation of trace contaminants in watertreatment chemicals. Before this research wasconducted, it was not known if problems associatedwith contaminants in water treatment chemicals werewidespread or limited to isolated events. This projectwas intended to answer this basic question using thebest available information across the United States andbeyond and to develop practical recommendations forutilities and the industry as a whole about how to identify,limit, and prevent contamination of treatmentchemicals to improve plant operations, lower treatmentcosts, and protect public health.In general, no pervasive problems with trace contaminantsin US water treatment chemicals were foundin this research, but when incidents do occur, themost commonly identified problems were transport-related,typically the result of improperly cleaned ormaintained delivery vehicles and transfer hoses. Treatmentchemicals were found to be of high quality, andtrace contaminant composition was lower than indicatedin the few previous studies that are available.This study showed that contamination incidents maybe largely averted when utilities develop and implementinspection and evaluation programs for incomingchemical deliveries at their facilities. These programsresult in more opportunities to identify, reject,and arrange replacement shipment for contaminatedtreatment chemicals before they are used at a facilityand before they can affect finished water or residualsquality. Includes 20 references, tables, figures.

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Edition: Vol. 96 - No. 12 Published: 12/01/2004 Number of Pages: 15File Size: 1 file , 480 KB