Copyright 1999 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.
Chicago
Sun-Times
View Related Topics
June 21, 1999, MONDAY, Late Sports
Final Edition
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 5
LENGTH: 345 words
HEADLINE:
City tests waters of purification plan
BYLINE: BY
MAUREEN O'DONNELL
BODY:
Chicago is testing
ozonization as a water treatment process that may improve taste, remove odor and
cut down on chlorine, city Water Commissioner Judy Rice said Sunday.
The
city will study the new process -- which involves passing water
through ozone, a form of oxygen -- for a year.
Chicago is
investigating the new technology partly because of the zebra mussel. As zebra
mussels filter their food from the lake, more sunlight penetrates through water,
creating algae growth that can make drinking water taste mossy. Ozonization
could improve water taste by fighting that algae growth. It could also lessen
the amount of chlorine used to purify city water.
Ongoing studies are
investigating potential health effects of drinking chlorinated water and the
disinfection byproducts that are created when
chlorine reacts to compounds in the water, Rice said. Questions
have been raised on possible health risks, such as cancer and miscarriage, Rice
said.
Chlorine cuts down on waterborne sicknesses that stalked early
Chicagoans. "Before the turn of the century, people had their cholera outbreaks,
their illnesses that came about because they were drinking water that hadn't
been treated with chlorine," Rice said.
"Currently chlorine is a
necessity for safe drinking water in terms of preventing illness related to
bacteria and viruses, and has been for the last hundred years," she said.
Ozonization would disinfect water of organisms such as cryptosporidium,
which sickened 400,000 Milwaukee area residents in 1993. It contributed to the
deaths of an estimated 100 people.
The process is already in use in
Milwaukee, central Lake County and Los Angeles, Rice said.
The new
technology would cost the city about $ 80 million at each of its treatment
facilities, including the Jardine Filtration Plant at 1000 E. Ohio and the South
Plant at 79th Street and the lakefront, Rice said.
The city is planning
a demonstration of the process Thursday. Eventually a "taste panel" of water
department employees will check the treated water for improved taste.
LOAD-DATE: June 22, 1999 
