Standard Chlorine Treatment Risky?

Should the standard practice of flush and forget continue to be embraced? Recent debate has focused on the final step in sewage processing - chlorine disinfection. It doesn't seem to be the perfectly safe solution it once was said to be.

According to an article by Erica Gies in Wired, "chlorine disinfection kills pathogenic bacteria so people swimming or fishing near treatment plants' discharge locations don't contract cholera, E. coli infection, Legionnaires' disease or other illnesses. The practice is still widespread, and chlorine remains the most widely used disinfectant at 16,000 wastewater treatment plants nationwide, according to John Millett, a spokesman for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

However, the toxicity of chlorine that kills harmful bacteria also hurts other life. And while the EPA says treatment plants must dechlorinate before spewing out treated wastewater, that effluent is not pure." It contains dechlorinated byproducts (DBPs), which are considered to be carcinogenic.

Interesting. Read the whole article by clicking the link above. Thanks, Wired.