Electrolytic Corrosion

I dug back into posts from the pipe deterioration section and was amazed at the video tagged to Dans post on copper mystery Thanks HotRod, again! Very interesting information that was never revealed to me in my plumbing and heating “education.”
Since I too live on Long Island, and work not far from Bethpage, I really sympathize with the problem over there. While I say over there, really I mean here. The plume is an enourmous problem, and while it is affecting people in a localized area, it’s really a problem for all of Long Island.
Some twenty years ago I worked for a P and H company and was fortunate enough to work under some great people who taught me so much. One of them was wise enough to turn me onto Dans books. Much time and life decisions have passed and now for some time I have been working at a municipal water supplier on LI. I miss being in the heating world, learning and working on systems, but as life would have it, now I’m just a water guy. But I think it’s great that the pipe deterioration section has been started, and I feel like I can submit a bit more now.
I don’t have any pictures at this time, but I am sure going to start getting them. At the water district I work for, we are fortunate enough to only have to add two things. Chlorine for disinfectant, and Sodium Hydroxide ( caustic soda) for PH control. Many districts opt for Lime to control PH. Chlorine, CL, is necessary for control of bacteria, and we maintain residual CL in the system, not only as a combatant, but as a marker/gauge. Knowing there is CL through out the system tells us that harmful bacteria is not. Caustic soda, Caustic, was put to use in our system a long time ago to control the corrosive nature of the raw ground water. And has been quite effective as the number of service leaks dropped dramatically since it was introduced. Most of these leaks had been taking place on copper services. It is my understanding that it is still not known quite how CL works as a disinfectant. While it’s not aesthetically pleasing, it is easy enough to mostly remove at the point of use. Safer and or economically feasible alternatives are seemingly just not available. People forget that no matter what water is used for, it all has to be at a potable level. Around here anyway. What is considered potable by government standards is getting more and more strict by the year. As restrictions reduce the allowable parts per million of contaminates, the life span of some treatment processes gets reduced dramatically. Granular activated carbon for instance, may still have much useful life left in it for some contaminates, but once it reaches breakthrough for just one type at a strict standard, it must be replaced. This is extremely costly. That being said, I’m all for strict guidelines that are enforced for the benefit of the consumers. People must realize that there comes a point that to treat tens of millions of gallons a day, there must be economic considerations where guidelines are set. That sounds like I don’t care about people’s health, just the bottom line, but that couldn’t be any farther from the truth. It’s just that there will come a point that to treat water to certain levels, it will become so costly to treat water that you would think your paying gas prices per gallon. Fortunately Ph control agents are economical.
In my opinion, And this is with very little background on the specific topic, Grumman should have to pay to remediate the plume. That process as far as I can tell is just a pump and treat and back to the aquifer cycle that will take a very long time. And money. And time is not on our side.
We definitely don’t know a whole lot about water, and it really in my opinion is the greatest force on earth. New contaminates and toxins are being discovered in our aquifer every year. And what are acceptable levels for them is becoming less and less. Aquifer awareness on LI has grown in recent years due to this plume. It’s sad that it takes something like that, but it’s time to take that momentum and keep pushing. Long Island has a sole source aquifer. Without it, all land here will be of no value. Which is why it truly amazes me that we continue to allow practices that we do. Fertilizer for lawns, contains nitrates and ammonia. Anybody who lives on LI knows we have a nitrate issue, yet it continues to be sold. So the Jones’ lawn can be as green as the Jones’ lawn. Could be that ammonia that is getting to the copper. If everyone had brown lawns, then we would all be keeping up with one another. All I’m saying is these practices would never be allowed in drought stricken areas, so it is in my opinion selfish to allow them to continue here. Education is the key, and the only way we can save this sole source so that our great grand kids can drink from it. Certainly this is not just an LI issue, and education on the topic should be standard in schools regardless of region.
So in regard to corrosion by stray current, it would seem the jury is still out, if only by the lack interest, and therefore data. There is strong opinion among professionals that it can and does cause leaks. I have heard time and again, by plumbers and fellow coworkers how ‘electrolysis’ could be to blame for pinhole leaks. It’s even standard for us when we detect amperage on a service, to recommend having the system checked by the power company for a bad neutral. This seemed to be an increased problem after hurricane Sandy ravaged the island. Data regarding this issue is not at this time maintained by the district. And the recommendations to have the electrical systems checked, are mostly in part due to the dangerous condition it creates. Yet there has been many a case that a water service that has a leak, also registered stray current on it. And many a veteran industry professional that would nearly swear by the the current being the cause. Of course there likely has been just as many leaking services that do not have stray current on them. Obviously there is more than a handful of proven causes. Yet while stray current alone may not be a strong contender, I do believe that when present, it certainly is speeding up reactions with deposits and therefore the rate at which a leak will occur. It could be said that a service that has current on it is going to attract more deposits. Which makes it difficult to assign blame since one or the other could arrive first, but not be convicted without the other. Co- conspirators perhaps.

Chlorine vs Chloramines, for me, brings to mind the old adage, The devil you know, is better than the devil you don’t know.
Both products have been around for a long time. Chlorine was first used for disinfection in the early 1900’s. 100 plus years is a long time to study the effects of its use for water treatment. Studies of Chloramine use has been far less extensive.
So why the switch? For water suppliers, there seems to be one attractive advantage to chloramine, volatility. Chloramine remains stable in a distribution system for a long time, whereas Chlorine will dissipate. The stable presence of Chloramine insures that holding tanks and distribution systems will fight off regrowth of bacteria. Another reason it has grown in use, is the belief of less disinfectant by-products. Both products when used to treat water will create disinfectant by-products, DBPs. The misunderstanding that Chloramine produces less, is in that it produces less of the regulated and understood DBPs. This doesn’t mean that it doesn’t produce other DBPs that are not regulated. Trihalomethane is the most scrutinized DBP because it is considered possibly carcinogenic. Trihalomethane, THM, is the result of both Chlorine and Chloramine reacting with organics. This is especially a concern when your water source is surface water, ie: lakes, rivers, aqueducts. Ground water is far less likely to contain organics.
In my opinion, there is far greater advantages to Chlorine use. Aside from being pretty well time tested, it is way more effective at killing harmful bacteria, and is much more consumer friendly. Removing chlorine from water is as simple as leaving an open container on your countertop for a day and it will naturally dissipate This is not the case with water treated with Chloramines. Granular activated Carbon, such as in your point of use filter or pitcher-filter will remove chlorine. But only when reverse osmosis is added can Chloramine be removed, and then you are still left with Ammonia. The human body is constantly removing ammonia as a toxic waste. I see no reason to make the job more difficult.
The difficulty in removing Chloramine is passed along to its consumers and industries, both classes are far less challenged by removing Chlorine. Chloramine use has also been attributed to pitting in copper pipes. It’s shown to be far more corrosive when a system switches to it, and therefore requires greater use of anti-corrosion agents. It has been shown to cause greater leaching of lead and lead solder in older homes. Any of these reasons in my opinion is enough to stay with the tried and true chlorine, but certainly a higher likelihood of corrosion is more than enough. I’m no engineer or chemist, i don’t even hold a degree, but I felt it worthwhile to regurgitate from the internet the information above, as we all consume water everyday, but we don’t always go and seek out information on it. The educated consumer is the best consumer.
Sites regurgitated from:
Simplewater.us
Hydroviv.com
Chloramine.org

Gotta love those ads! Pharma with some alien type name cures an ailment, while possibly creating five others! It’s interesting also, that the dangers in those drugs are not just flushing old ones down the toilet, it’s when every user goes to the bathroom. Most of the drug actually goes through the system and right into the toilet!