Last month, contaminated tap water running through rusting supply systems caused two major outbreaks of hepatitis in the Saratov region and areas just south of Moscow, sickening more than 300 people. Korabelnikov, whose laboratory has done a great deal of testing of city tap water, said nothing alarming has been found in Moscow. As proof, he said none of the laboratory's employees use purifying devices at home. Although sanitary requirements for tap water are rather strict and must meet some 1,500 requirements, some doctors have their suspicions about the city's water. Dr. Gennady Sayenko, medical director at the American Medical Center, said the city's tap water should not be trusted not because of the risk of picking up an infectious disease like hepatitis, but because it is highly chlorinated.
Doctors say high levels of chlorine can hurt the liver.
He said Moscow lags behind some Western cities that have switched to more expensive but less toxic water purification methods like ozone and ultraviolet ray treatment. At the Rublyovskaya pumping station in western Moscow, water also gets an ozone treatment, Korabelnikov said. During seasonal surges in water-borne bacteria, some pumping stations increase the level of chlorine in tap water this is especially true in northern Moscow. That is when a light medicinal smell to running water may be noticeable, Korabelnikov said. For starters, simply boiling tap water for five minutes is an effective method for killing bacteria, but it does not have much of an impact on the chemical structure of water, Korabelnikov said.