There are many challenges in today’s treatment of poultry water. Water quality standards for growers have not been fully established and most growers are utilizing untreated surface or well water. Problems with waterborne pathogens and scale are common. Because of the poor quality often found in well or surface waters, many growers started utilizing city/community water. The high cost of this trend has affected the bottom line of the grower tremendously. This research will focus on cost-effective water disinfection solutions that do not affect water chemistry or produce harmful disinfection byproducts. In order to justify this approach, currently utilized disinfection methods were analyzed.
Chlorine and its various forms (chlorine gas, chloramine, chlorine dioxide, calcium hypochlorite, sodium hypochlorite, etc.) have been utilized as disinfectants in public water supplies for about a century. In poultry, there is a growing focus on oxidation reduction potential (ORP) levels without consideration of the water’s pH. Growers are actually over chlorinating their water to reach target ORP levels. This is significant because recent studies have shown that chlorine may directly or indirectly be the principal cause of many forms of cancer.
The EPA adopted a trihalomethane regulation in 1979 to limit the allowable level of carcinogenic disinfection byproducts (DBP) in drinking water. Although chlorine is a good disinfectant, it also can form trace amounts of a DBP called trihalomethane (THM) (Swichtenberg , 2003). THMs are chemicals that are formed when organic materials (e.g., decaying trees and leaves as well as urban farm run-off) combine with free chlorine. This has caused great concerns about using chlorine in recent years and the EPA and water companies have searched for ways of reducing these byproducts. Continue Reading…
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There are many challenges in today’s treatment of poultry water. Water quality standards for growers have not been fully established and most growers are utilizing untreated surface or well water. Problems with waterborne pathogens and scale are common. Because of the poor quality often found in well or surface waters, many growers started utilizing city/community water. The high cost of this trend has affected the bottom line of the grower tremendously. This research will focus on cost-effective water disinfection solutions that do not affect water chemistry or produce harmful disinfection byproducts. In order to justify this approach, currently utilized disinfection methods were analyzed.
Chlorine and its various forms (chlorine gas, chloramine, chlorine dioxide, calcium hypochlorite, sodium hypochlorite, etc.) have been utilized as disinfectants in public water supplies for about a century. In poultry, there is a growing focus on oxidation reduction potential (ORP) levels without consideration of the water’s pH. Growers are actually over chlorinating their water to reach target ORP levels. This is significant because recent studies have shown that chlorine may directly or indirectly be the principal cause of many forms of cancer.
The EPA adopted a trihalomethane regulation in 1979 to limit the allowable level of carcinogenic disinfection byproducts (DBP) in drinking water. Although chlorine is a good disinfectant, it also can form trace amounts of a DBP called trihalomethane (THM) (Swichtenberg , 2003). THMs are chemicals that are formed when organic materials (e.g., decaying trees and leaves as well as urban farm run-off) combine with free chlorine. This has caused great concerns about using chlorine in recent years and the EPA and water companies have searched for ways of reducing these byproducts.
Continue Reading…
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Are you an average adult American? If so, then you consume 70 pounds of beef, 60 pounds of pork, and 550 pounds of dairy (love that ice cream). Americans feel safe eating because they know the foods they eat have been monitored by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
But, how safe is our food industry, really? Do the USDA and FDA really monitor our food for quality and safety? Is there anything to fear?
Continue Reading…
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