The Tulsa Metropolitan Utility Authority says the contractor has been chosen and it will soon issue an "order to proceed" with the conversion of the city's water treatment system to chloramines.

The use of chloramines as a secondary disinfection system is widespread nationally and some cities have used the process for decades.

It involves injecting a small amount of ammonia into the water just before it leaves the treatment plant and moves into the distribution system.

The ammonia bonds with cholorine to form the chloramines, which do not have the same antiseptic strength as chlorine, but last much longer in the system.

The change comes about as the result of new federal rules for testing water quality.

Previously, the city could use an average of several testing sites.

Now, the city must meet or exceed standards at each individual site.

Another factor in the city's consideration was the 20 or so customers to which it sells water, including the cities of Jenks, Bixby, Owasso and Glenpool.

"This is the first time that they're responsible for their own compliance," Joan Arthur of the Tulsa Metropolitan Utility Authority told KRMG in an exclusive interview. "They have to collect samples."

Previously, they would have been considered in compliance as long as Tulsa was in compliance.

"We're just waiting to execute the contract," she said, adding that the holidays and the timing of a Dec. 14 meeting at which TMUA members heard from Bob Bowcock, an environmental expert who works with attorney Erin Brockavitch.

Bowcock argued that the city could use activated charcoal to disinfect the water supply, but Robert Brownwood, Tulsa's Water Supply Manager, says the city carefully studied that option before they ever heard from Bowcock.

"Every single one of his issues he brought up, we were fully aware of three years ago," he told KRMG.

Arthur, who's managing the conversion project, agreed, saying the TMUA "did not hear anything during the presentation which would cause them to change their course of action."

Jeanine Kinney, a Tulsan who contacted Brockovitch's office initially, was instrumental in bringing Bowcock into the fight to stop the conversion.

She says the TMUA and the city haven't done much to educate the public about the conversion and what she calls its potentially harmful effects.

She says the EPA has not adequately studied chloramines and anecdotal evidence indicates that it will lead to skin problems, breathing problems for asthmatics, as well as the potential leeching of harmful chemicals like lead into the water supply.

Brownwood and others at the city and TMUA board members, say those dangers have not been documented.

They say studies conducted by the city, including scientific tests of treated water on lead and copper pipes, debunk those concerns.

Arthur says the work on installing the ammonia injection equipment should begin before the end of the month and the contract calls for it to be complete within 120 days.