TASTIER WATER ON TAP TREATMENT CHANGES TO BEGIN IN VALLEY.

Byline: Kerry Cavanaugh Staff Writer

Forget expensive bottled water. Los Angeles will soon start getting better-tasting, better-smelling water using a different disinfectant.

The change will be phased in over the next 10 years, beginning in the Sunland-Tujunga area.

The Department of Water and Power plans to launch the $4 million first step next month, using chloramines - a diluted combination of chlorine and ammonia - rather than chlorine alone to kill disease-causing bacteria in drinking water.

Water quality managers currently have to add enough chlorine to the water treated at the Los Angeles Aqueduct Filtration Plant in Sylmar that the supply will still be pure by the time it reaches taps in faraway West and South Los Angeles. As a result, San Fernando Valley residents typically get higher concentrations of chlorine in their water.

``Chloramines will help us aesthetically because it lasts longer in water,'' said Pankaj Parekh, the director of water quality compliance for the Department of Water and Power. ``It gives me more comfort that I won't have to put as much in.''

However, like chlorine, chloramines are toxic for pet fish - both freshwater and saltwater varieties, as well as those in koi ponds - because the water passes through their gills directly into the bloodstream. The chemicals must be removed from water before fish are introduced.

Kidney dialysis patients also will have to remove chloramines, as they did with chlorine, because water is introduced into the bloodstream during the dialysis process. However, it is safe for kidney dialysis patients to drink chloraminated water.

DWP officials are advising people with kidney problems to contact their doctors, and telling fish owners to check with pet stores for information on removing chloramines from the water.

Chlorine developed as a popular disinfectant in the early 1900s and soon became one of the most important public health advances, virtually ending widespread cases of cholera, typhoid and other waterborne diseases.

However, recent studies have shown that chlorine reacts with animal waste, plant materials and other organic material to form trihalomethanes. The byproducts are potential cancer-causing contaminants and also have been linked to increased miscarriages and birth defects.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has adopted rules that limit the amount of disinfectant byproducts and more stringent rules are on the horizon, prompting the DWP and other providers to begin switching to chloramines.

San Francisco and the East Bay have switched to chloramines and the transition went fairly smoothly, said Bruce Macler, a toxicologist with the EPA's Drinking Water Program.

Rubber joints on pipes and toilet flappers used with chlorine might degrade faster with chloramines, but water filters designed to remove chlorine only have to be altered.

``You have to do it very carefully or people will start to complain the water tastes funny,'' Macler said.

The Metropolitan Water District has used chloramines since 1984 and the DWP has begun pumping Met water to harbor area and East Los Angeles residents.

Starting in September, the DWP will take the Green Verdugo Reservoir in the Verdugo Mountains off-line and deliver residents chlorinated water from the Sylmar filtration plant, with ammonia mixed in to create chloramines. In the meantime, the DWP will work on the covered reservoir and add a permanent ammonia system to provide chloraminated water to the area.

DWP will test Sunland-Tujunga water every day while the system is new.

In the next 10 years, the DWP will convert the filtration plant to supply chloraminated water to the whole city.

``If everything goes smoothly, the only thing they'll notice is the absence of chlorine,'' Parekh said.

Kerry Cavanaugh, [phone]

kerry.cavanaugh(at)dailynews.com