KINSTON, N.C. — Customers of the Neuse Regional WASA plant are reportedly seeing increased cases of rust in pipes and need for new hot water heaters,enctoday.com reported.
This is supposedly due to the plant’s decision to use chloramines, which are said to be less expensive and more effective than chlorine; however, they are known to have corrosive effects on certain pipes and hot water heaters, according to the story.
While WASA has done nothing unethical or illegal, the city has ordered them to switch back to chlorine for approximately four weeks, starting tomorrow, the article stated.
“The city’s constantly flushing their mains to help alleviate the problem, but it’s just something that you’re going to have to deal with,” said Ricky Stroud, a local plumber and owner of Ed Phillips Heating, AC & Plumbing of Kinston. “The state’s the one that mandated that you can’t pump (water) out of the ground anymore so you’re just going to have to deal with it until it’s gone”

Ian: Wow, thanks for that, Ricky. So all those older homes with brazed joints and copper pipes can look forward to a toxic brew of heavy metals every morning as they drink the result of chloramine doing it's work on their old pipes.