NJ American Water's Coastal North System has dosed your tap with chloramines since 2012 — and every spring, they run a "chlorine burn" that cranks it even higher. Here's what that's actually doing to your skin, your lungs, and your long-term health.
Your tap water in Monmouth County smells like a pool because NJ American Water disinfects with chloramines year-round and "burns" the system with straight chlorine every spring (Feb 16 – April 13 in 2026). That disinfection creates byproducts — TTHMs and HAA5 — linked in peer-reviewed research to bladder cancer, miscarriage, and low birth weight. The EPA legal limit is 500× higher than the health-based guideline. Pitcher filters don't remove chloramine. You need catalytic carbon — which is exactly what Halo 5 whole-home systems are built around.
Water leaves the treatment plant clean. It gets to your kitchen sink through miles of pipe — some of which is more than 80 years old. Without a disinfectant in the water the whole time, bacteria would grow and people would get sick. So every utility in the country adds some form of chlorine.
NJ American Water's Coastal North System — the system that serves Monmouth County, including Keyport, Hazlet, Middletown, Holmdel, Union Beach, Matawan, Aberdeen, and dozens of other towns — switched from free chlorine to chloramines in June 2012. Chloramine is made by combining chlorine with a small amount of ammonia. It's more stable than free chlorine, meaning it holds its disinfection power longer through long pipe runs. The trade-off is that it has a distinct, heavy pool smell that many homeowners notice at the tap, in the shower, and on their laundry.
Roughly one in five Americans now drinks chloraminated tap water, and the number keeps growing as utilities try to lower their disinfection-byproduct numbers. Chloramine generates fewer regulated byproducts than free chlorine — which helps utilities hit their EPA targets — but it creates a different set of problems that don't get as much press.
Sources: EPA — Chloramines in Drinking Water; NJ American Water Quality Reports; CDC — Chloramine in Drinking Water.
Once a year, every utility that uses chloramine has to temporarily switch back to free chlorine for several weeks. This is called a chlorine burn (or "chlorine maintenance"). The reason is biofilm — a slimy microbial layer that builds up inside the distribution pipes. Chloramine holds levels steady but doesn't attack biofilm aggressively. Free chlorine does.
NJ American Water runs this burn every spring. In 2026, the Coastal North burn ran from February 16 through April 13 — 57 straight days of elevated free chlorine coming out of every tap in Monmouth County. During that stretch, the water smelled noticeably more like a pool, tasted sharper, and produced more complaints about skin irritation, eczema flare-ups, and gastrointestinal upset.
The burn matters for three groups in particular:
Sources: NJ American Water Quality News; EPA Stage 1 & 2 DBPR; National Kidney Foundation — Dialysis & Water.
Here's the part most people never hear about. When chlorine or chloramine meets the natural organic matter that's present in every source water — leaves, algae, decayed plant material in a reservoir — it produces a family of compounds called disinfection byproducts (DBPs). The two most regulated groups are total trihalomethanes (TTHMs) and haloacetic acids (HAA5).
Under the EPA Stage 2 Disinfectants and Disinfection Byproducts Rule, utilities have to keep TTHMs under 80 parts per billion and HAA5 under 60 parts per billion as a "locational running annual average." Most NJ American Water locations stay under the legal limit — but that limit is not a health-based number.
A landmark 2020 peer-reviewed meta-analysis published in Environmental Health Perspectives estimated that 2% to 17% of all bladder cancer cases in the United States are attributable to long-term exposure to disinfection byproducts in drinking water. The risk grows with duration of exposure and is highest in utilities with the highest DBP levels.
Additional peer-reviewed research has linked TTHM exposure to:
The Environmental Working Group's health-based guideline for total trihalomethanes is 0.15 ppb. The EPA legal limit is 80 ppb — more than 500 times the health guideline. Regulatory limits balance public-health protection with what utilities can technically and economically achieve at scale. Personal home filtration is how you close the gap.
Sources: EPA Stage 2 DBPR; Environmental Health Perspectives — DBP & Bladder Cancer; NIH PubMed — THMs & Miscarriage; EWG Health Guideline — TTHMs.
You don't have to wait decades to feel chloraminated water. Most people notice some of this within days of moving into the service area:
Chlorine and chloramine strip the natural oils (sebum) that protect the skin barrier. The direct effects:
A 2018 study in the Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology found a statistically significant correlation between residential chlorinated water exposure and atopic dermatitis severity in children.
This is the one no one warns you about. In a hot shower, chlorine and chloramine volatilize — they turn into gas. You inhale chloroform, trichloramine, and related vapor for the full length of every shower. Peer-reviewed research in The American Journal of Public Health has shown that a 10-minute hot shower contributes more inhaled chloroform exposure than drinking 2 liters of the same water.
Elevated chloramine vapor exposure is associated with new-onset asthma in adults, worsened asthma control in kids, chronic bronchitis symptoms, and sinus irritation. Indoor-air studies at public swimming pools (the only environment with similar chloramine loads) show measurable respiratory effects in lifeguards and coaches — and your bathroom during a shower has no industrial ventilation.
Drinking water that contains residual disinfectant 24/7 feeds that same disinfectant into your gut every time you drink, cook, make coffee, or brush your teeth. Emerging research suggests long-term daily exposure may contribute to gut dysbiosis — though the field is still young. What's clear is that chloramine-treated water does not support home-brewing, kombucha making, or sourdough starters without removal first.
Sources: American Journal of Public Health — Chloroform Inhalation in Showering; J. Eur. Acad. Dermatology — Chlorinated Water & Eczema; American Lung Association — Chloramine.
Free chlorine is a relatively unstable molecule. Drop it through a standard granular activated carbon (GAC) filter and it's gone almost instantly. That's why basic pitcher filters and fridge filters do a decent job with chlorine taste.
Chloramine is a different animal. The ammonia-chlorine bond is much more stable, and chloramine requires a specific kind of carbon — catalytic activated carbon — and much longer contact time to break apart. Most off-the-shelf pitcher filters, refrigerator filters, and generic whole-home carbon tanks are not built to handle chloramine at full flow rates. They'll knock the smell down a little. They won't eliminate it.
| Filter Type | Free Chlorine | Chloramine | TTHMs / HAA5 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard pitcher (GAC) | Good | Poor | Partial |
| Fridge / faucet filter | Good | Poor | Partial |
| Undersized carbon tank | Good | Poor — breakthrough at normal flow | Partial |
| Catalytic carbon + KDF-55 | Excellent | Excellent — designed for it | Strong reduction |
| Halo 5 Whole-Home (FIXALL spec) | Excellent at every tap | Excellent at every tap | Strong reduction at every tap |
| Halo 5 + Kitchen RO | Eliminated | Eliminated | >95% reduction at kitchen |
The other reason whole-home filtration matters for chloramine specifically: the shower is where the biggest exposure happens. A kitchen filter doesn't protect your lungs from vapor during a hot shower, and it doesn't protect your skin or your kid's eczema. A properly sized point-of-entry system does.
Sources: NSF — Choosing a Water Filter; Water Quality Association — Chloramines Fact Sheet.
There are really three serious options for a Monmouth County household on NJ American Water:
A vitamin-C or KDF shower head will knock down chlorine and a portion of chloramine in one shower. This is better than nothing, especially for kids with eczema. The downsides: it only protects one shower, cartridges need frequent replacement (usually every 2–3 months), and it does nothing for drinking water, laundry, or the bathroom you forgot about.
This is the Halo 5 whole-home water filtration system, sized and installed at the main water line where the pipe enters the house. Every drop of water that goes to every tap, shower, tub, toilet fill, dishwasher, washing machine, and refrigerator is filtered. The combination of KDF-55 media and catalytic activated carbon is specifically engineered for chlorine and chloramine removal. No pitchers, no cartridges in every sink, no babysitting.
Whole-home filtration for showers, skin, and laundry, plus a dedicated kitchen reverse-osmosis unit at the sink for drinking, coffee, and baby formula. This stacks so that TTHMs, HAA5, any residual disinfectant, and anything else that's slipped through — PFAS, pharmaceutical residue, pesticides — is stripped out before it hits a glass. This is what FIXALL installs for families with a pregnancy, young kids, or any cancer history.
FIXALL is a registered Halo dealer and a licensed NJ Master Plumber (#36BI01212500). Every installation is custom-sized to the home's actual water chemistry, static pressure, and household size — no warehouse-box, one-size guesswork.
FIXALL is based in Keyport, serving all of Monmouth County on NJ American Water's Coastal North System. Book a free on-site water test. We measure your actual chlorine, chloramine, and hardness — and show you exactly what it will take to stop the pool smell for good. No obligation.
FIXALL is based in Keyport, serving all of Monmouth County. Book a free in-home water test — no obligation, no pressure, just answers.