Is the water you are drinking clean? Are there better and cheaper alternatives? Who is responsible for keeping water safe, and are they doing a good job? In this edition, the Kyiv Post launches a four-part series to answer these questions. The newspaper hired experts to analyze 25 samples of water from taps, pumps, wells and bottles.
What will happen to you after drinking Kyiv tap water?
Many city residents call water from the faucet poison, while others argue it is normal and perhaps the only type that is strictly controlled by state agencies.
To separate fact from fiction in this dispute, the Kyiv Post ordered an independent laboratory check of water quality.
The findings: The truth lies somewhere in the middle.
Occasional drinking of Kyiv tap water is safe, but constant use over years may cause serious health problems, such as cancer.
Microbiological tests proved the absence of any harmful bacteria in this water, while physical and chemical testing revealed that the outdated use of chlorine to disinfect the water supply poses a risk.
“The much-criticized chlorine is used everywhere,” said Viacheslav Prokopov, professor at Marzeyev Institute of Hygiene and Medical Ecology. “But it’s hard to find an alternative for it.”
Chlorine is an old and common way to decontaminate river water, which is the main drinking source in Kyiv. Although chlorine is not dangerous in itself, it can react with various organic compounds to form new substances called organochlorine, which experts say harm reproductive health and even may cause cancer.
There has been significant progress since 1997, when the municipal water firm, Kyivvodokanal, began using ammonium as well as chlorine to decontaminate the water. The chlorine reacts with the ammonium – instead of organic compounds – to create a harmless compound.
But some chlorine remains.
The test results organized by the Kyiv Post showed excessive levels of chlorine in two of three samples of water that were taken from kitchen taps in Kyiv apartments on April 2.
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(An official document with chemical test results of the tap water can be seen here, and microbiological test results can be found here.)
As the table shows, chlorine levels were two times above legal limits in a sample taken on Kyiv’s left bank, where water is supplied mainly from the Desna River. It was also significantly over the limit in the sample from the right bank, which is Dnipro River water.
Chlorine in the water sample taken in Obolon district – where river water is mixed with groundwater – was within safe limits.
“There are definitely problems with organochlorine” in both left and right bank tap water, said Natalia Makarova, deputy head of Ion Exchange and Adsorption Laboratory at National Technical University of Ukraine, which conducted the chemical tests.
Makarova said the laboratory regularly tests tap water in Kyiv and observes excessive levels of chlorine in the tap water every spring, approximately from mid-March to mid-May.
“They are forced to put more chlorine in the water to solve a more serious problem, which is to prevent infectious diseases from developing during floods when the snow melts and the quality of water significantly deteriorates,” Makarova said.
Kyivvodokanal says it informs municipal utilities firms when chlorine levels are high, who then warn consumers so that they can filter the water additionally at home.
But, in this case, the company did not do this. Moreover, officials from Kyivvodokanal said the Kyiv Post’s laboratory tests gave erroneous data.
“Over the last few years there has been no chlorine in the tap water,” said Volodymyr Kostiuk, chief engineer at Kyivvodokanal. He touted the company’s program for using ammonium to prevent organochlorine from forming.
Kostiuk said chlorine was a serious problem more than a decade ago, and it can be detected by a strong chlorine smell in the water.
Around a half-dozen left bank residents who spoke with the Kyiv Post said they often sense this smell.
The Kyiv Post showed the test results to Kyiv Sanitary-Epidemiological Service, which dismissed the findings. Officials said violations of state standards could only have been caused by unprofessional withdrawal of water samples.
“As the water sampling was conducted not by the specialists of the Kyiv sanitary service, there is no point in talking about credibility of the results,” said Olha Rudnytska, Kyiv’s deputy chief sanitary doctor. She said the sanitary services that test water quality haven’t found any alarming results.
The samples for the tests were taken by the journalists in accordance with the laboratories’ sanitary recommendations. The process can be viewed in the video below.
Watch the video of the Kyiv Post taking tap water samples here.
Although the quality of drinking water is a vital issue, punishment for violations of standards is insignificant. Mykola Aleksiuk, a lawyer at the Ilyashev & Partners, said violations in tap water quality can lead to fines for Kyivvodokanal officials from Hr 85 to Hr 136. That’s just over $10.
The company’s representatives, however, said they are responsible only for the water delivered to the “section of the house,” but not for water in the tap. “The housing and utility companies, association of owners of apartment buildings and the other owners of houses are responsible for the quality of water in the tap,” Kostiuk, chief engineer at Kyivvodokanal, said.
Kostiuk added that any results showing poor water quality in taps are due to outdated water pipes, which can contaminate the water on its way to consumers.
Kostiantyn Zahorodniuk, an assistant professor at the Bogomolets National Medical University, said that most organochlorine forms in water during its chlorination by water supply plants, but that some of these dangerous substances appear when the water flows through pipes to the taps of Kyiv residents.
“In over 35 countries a special water stabilization process is used,” Zahorodniuk said, which adds certain harmless chemicals to prevent water from reacting with substances that the water may come into contact with in pipes and prevents corrosion of the pipes.
Ukraine is not one of those countries.
“We don’t use it,” he added.
Kostiuk said Kyivvodokanal knows about this method of water processing but expressed doubts that it could be applied soon because of a lack of state financing for the modernization of the water supply. Instead, he said additional chlorine is used to disinfect pipes.
In Sweden, unlike Ukraine, chlorine is not used to clean the pipes, so the amount of the chemical in the water decreases from the supply plant to the consumers’ taps.
“The limit for chlorine in drinking water leaving the treatment plant (not yet at consumer) is 0.4 milligram per cubic decimeter,” said Yulia Kalmykova, a researcher at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. It “decreases gradually further out on the grid. In Gothenburg, the local guideline is 0.15-0.25 milligram per cubic decimeter,” she added.
But even with this tiny quantity of chlorine in drinking water, the Swedes aim to completely switch to ozone disinfection by the end of 2012, Kalmykova said.
As for Ukrainian consumers, Anna Tsvetkova, water and sanitation program coordinator at MAMA-86 suggested that they use coal filters to purify tap water and remove chlorine.
The samples from the right bank, purified with the filter pitcher Barrier and Dzherelna Voda 3 filter by Nasha Voda brand fastened under the sink, proved that the filters are effective with chlorine.
The filters checked by the Kyiv Post showed quite impressive results.
As well as chlorine levels, both of them improved color and oxidation, which are indirect indicators of organic substances that the water contains. The tap filter generally cleared water more completely than the filter pitcher, but also removes calcium to below recommended levels.
The current Ukrainian water filters market is worth $80 million and grows every year by up to 30-40 percent, according to WaterNet, a nongovernmental organization.
But the consumers have to make a hard decision: how to choose the filter that fits your tap. The best way is to order an independent check of your water ahead of buying the filter.
If you find this expensive, experts advise purchasing filters of certified firms and carefully monitoring when the cartridge should be changed. It is better, they say, to change the cartridge even before the expiration date.
“A worn-out cartridge doesn’t perform its mission and may even make the tap water worse,” said Valeriy Maliarenko deputy head of Ukrainian Water Association, which represents filter producers.
With all the disadvantages many experts say they prefer tap water over its alternatives. Both Zahorodniuk and Tsvetkova drink tap water, purified by filters. Kostiuk from Kyivvodokanal said he drinks tap water, saying he believes it is safe.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Grytsenko can be reached at [email protected], and Oksana Faryna can be reached at [email protected].
Editor’s Note: This project was funded by SCOOP, an international network of investigative journalists that receives funding from the Danish government. More information is available at i-scoop.org.
Read also: Part 2: Pumping deep for a cool drink (June 1)
Part 3: Bottled Water: Which Is Best? (July 13) Part 4: Which water to drink (July 20)
