Lee County Utilities will end its routine free chlorine flush on May 21. It will convert its disinfection process back to the use of chloramines. The flush began May 1.
Free chlorine is the sanitizing form of chlorine that kills bacteria, viruses and other contaminants. Chloramines form when free chlorine combines with ammonia and water. Free chlorine flushes are used to improve water quality, kill bacteria and make sure that bacteria doesn’t develop a chemical resistance to the usual disinfectant.
Utilities customers who use a kidney dialysis machine should contact their equipment supplier to install new filtering equipment, if necessary. Customers who own tropical fish or other aquatic animals should contact a local tropical fish store to properly pretreat water before adding more to tanks.
Water taste, color, and odor are expected to change temporarily, which is not harmful. Converting to the chloramine disinfectant system will take approximately one week.
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