As a person who has lived in her Vermont community with chloramine in her tap water since 4/2006, I can relate to the subject of water! I don't know what I would do without bottled spring water. I have it delivered in 5-gal. reusable jugs once per month- 6 of them- and costs me $4.80 per month. I've spent $2006.40 so far. I use it to drink, make coffee and other beverages, cook with, wash my face with in the morning, brush my teeth with and rinse my hands off in after washing my hands in tap water. I also use it for "bird baths" in between my showers at a YMCA in a nearby town that still uses chlorine in the water. 8/2006 was my last shower at home, when a pain in my chest and rashes on my body drove me to stop doing it.

As long as I don't touch chloraminated tap water I'm okay- I don't get the skin, respiratory and digestive symptoms I developed after chloramine came into my water. Sometimes a rash starts on my hand if I get lazy about rinsing in spring water after washing my hands in my tap water.

This is NO way to live! Without being able to use spring water I would have had to move. I personally documented 300+ people in my Vermont water district between 2006 and 2009. It was expensive and time consuming to do as a volunteer. We thought 300+ people was enough to make the point for them to stop using it until it can be studied for the very symptoms people were all having. Apparently not. It's still in my water and I am still unable to use my water without getting sick.

I meant to write that spring water costs me $41.80 per month- $2006.40 so far, and still going. I also forgot to write that I have to feed my dog spring water, too, because chloraminated water gives her the runs. I discovered that after her having the runs over and over when she came home once a week from my neighbors who were kind enough to have her at their house while I was on a long work day. I'd keep asking them if she got into something there and they would say no. It finally dawned on me that maybe they were feeding her tap water, which they were. I experimented one day by sending her over with a thermos of spring water. No runs when she came home. First time. She's been going over there with her thermos of spring water evern since.

Another thing: you can't distill chloramine out of water. Neither can you boil it out of water. And if you put a bowl of it out on the counter, it will take weeks for it to dissipate out of water, unlike chlorine, which only takes a few hours to at the most to.

We live in Los Altos and we lost all of the fish in our fish pond when a fill valve was broken. Too much fresh water (treated with chloramine) entered our pond, which killed our fish. We called our local water company (Cal Water) and told them what happened. They told us that the chloramine in the water killed our fish. If fish can be killed in two days by chloraminated water, it is powerful stuff. We are concerned about our health, so we have bottled spring water delivered to our house. I have not found any method that can filter all the chloramine out of the water. We wish we could feel safe drinking our tap water, which we did when it was treated with chlorine. However, chloramine is much different and stays in the water a lot longer. No tests have been done to determine the health effects of chloramine on humans and I know many people who are having adverse reactions when they drink and bathe in water disinfected with chloramine.