Tuesday, July 10, 2007
The note under my door
So, I returned to my room at a well-known Washington, D.C. hotel to find this charmer under the door:
We have been notified by the Washington DC Water and Sewer Authority that they will need to shut off the hotel's water supply Tuesday, July 10, 2007 and Wednesday, July 11, 2007 at approximately 11 p.m., to test new pipes affecting the city's water system. We do not anticipate this taking more than three hours on July 10th and six hours on July 11th.
We regret that we have no control over this situation, but we will do everything we can to minimize its impact. Drinking water will be available in the lobby should you require more than what is provided in your room. Please dial "0" should your toilet tank need to be refilled. We have also made arrangements with one of our neighbor hotels, not affected by this incident, for shower facilities if needed.
Fortunately, I got back here just in time to avail myself of the traditional auto-refill feature on the toilet, so I do not anticipate having to call "0" for a manual recharge. I do wonder, though, how much you should tip for that.
3 Comments:
By 
, at
Wed Jul 11, 01:03:00 AM:
That will be okay unless jounior wants a drink of water or you have to go real bad while the water is off
By , at
Wed Jul 11, 07:52:00 AM:
Not something that Miss Manners probably covers in her columns!
Look at the bright side -- DC is improving its infrastructure. Probably long overdue.
By , at
Wed Jul 11, 09:41:00 AM:
The Mayflower Hotel perhaps? Nice place, but the ceilings are damn low in some common areas.
Washington DC has been having problems with its water supply since about 2000. The city switched from disinfection with chlorine to using chloramine, a compound made of chlorine and ammonia. Fill a pool with chloramine treated water and it will look green rather than blue.
Chloramine treated water has been implicated in causing pin hole leaks in copper water pipes. DC has had a a big problem with that. Some also suspect that chloramine increases the leaching of lead from old pipes.
All this stems from the war on chlorine, started by environmentalists and now backed by the EPA. They fear that chlorinated water will yield chloroform, carbon tetrachloride and other organochlorides. There's also the silly fear that storing large quantities of chlorine gas at treatment plants presents an unacceptable risk to the public. Give me a break. I'll take chlorine over cholera.
To combat the corrosion problems with using chloramine, orthophosphate is being added to the water. Orthophosphate is a food additive, but is feared to break loose rust and even more lead from the pipes. Just great. So the fear of chlorine induced cancers will lead to what? More lead contamination in our big cities? Also, regulators have worked hard to remove phosphates from effluents. For example detergents. Now they want to put them back?
I live on well water. No chlorine, no fluorine, no nothing. It's acidic and needs neutralization, but my pipes are mostly plastic (another chlorinated product detested by the environmentalists). If I suspect bacterial contamination, a bottle or two of chlorox down the well head does the trick!
P.S. My recent 25th reunion reminded me of chatting with your dad at his 25th back in 1982. Great seeing you, thanks for the wonderful pics!
