Chlorine is our primary disinfection treatment. While it does an excellet job of killing the microogranisms that may be harmful to you, chlorine aslo reacts with natural organic material commonly found in surface water sources like lakes, rivers and streams. This reaction forms compounds called "disinfection byproducts." We must meet dringking water standards for two groups of disinfection byproducts compounds. Byproduct levels found in water depend primarily on:

• The amount of natural organic material in the water
• The amount of chlorine used to treat water
• The amount of time it takes water to reach the customer

Byproduct levels vary throughout the year. Byproducts often increase during the warmest months when the water supply has its highest levels of natural organic material and chemical reactions happen faster. We work to minimize byproduct levels and have adjusted protions of our system operations. We will soon place new covered storage tanks at McMillin Reservoir in service, which will replace the last of our open reservoirs. This will improve water quality and help reduce disinfection byproducts. Filtration will remove a percentage of the natural organic material, further reducing byproducts.