Tag Archives: water quality

The Daily Feed
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Nothing Like The Smell of Chlorine in the Morning…

Photo courtesy of
‘Preparation.’
courtesy of ‘Cameron Cassan’

Our friends over at Prince of Petworth recently asked the question “Why does a swimming pool come out of my faucet?” and an anonymous commenter delivered the news: From February 1st until May 17th, DC WASA changed the disinfectant used in its water treatment process from chloarmine (NH2Cl) to chlorine.

Chloramine is used for most of the year because it is far more stable than free chlorine and lacks the smell of chlorine. Chloramine is toxic to certain animals (e.g. fish) and is one of the reasons you need to age the water a few days or use product to make it safe. However, Chloramine is not as effective at sanitizing as free Chlorine. So WASA is effectively shocking the system.

You can read the DC WASA press release for more info

The Daily Feed, WTF?!
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Today at Work: A Big Bag of Drugs


Bag of drugs
Originally uploaded by carlweaver

A coworker brought a large trash bag labeled “drugs” into our office and has been calling different pharmacies to see what she can do with them. They are old medications from her boyfriend’s father – prescriptions from over the years that she found in the house she and her boyfriend are moving into.

With all the hullabloo over drugs and other flushed nonsense ending up in our drinking water, it’s certainly a bad idea to just throw these in the trash or flush them down the crapper, but how should she dispose of them? The pharmacy technicians she has spoken with are at a loss as well.

The upside to all this is that she resembled a drug-distributing Santa Claus, the sack over her shoulder making a hunch on her back. It was just like Christmas, except with drugs. There’s nothing “good” in there, mind you, just blood pressure meds and the such, pills, vials, liquids, ointments and gel caps for various ailments we will likely all develop as we get old. All of us except Katie, that is, who is young enough to reference her college’s Wikipedia policy. Damn kids.

Any ideas what to do with this stuff? Bueller?