The City of Tillamook is working collaboratively with Tillamook County Health, and the Oregon Health Authority on response to the Coronavirus. One of the recommendations is to sanitize or disinfect surfaces; shelves, door knobs, light switches, etc.
The City of Tillamook uses chlorine as a disinfectant in the water at the City’s Water Treatment Plant; this is our drinking water. This is a common practice used by water operators around the globe. The City generally manages the chlorine concentrations at 6 parts per million (ppm); however, the City is increasing our chlorine content to 8 ppm to assist your cleaning.
The City has the ability to make chlorine for our drinking water. If sanitizing and disinfectant supplies become short in supply, the City has enough chlorine for our drinking water to weather any shortage.
All disinfectants have a contact time needed for disinfection, ranging from a few seconds to several minutes. Please check your container for instructions and correct contact time to be effective.
To mix a sanitizer, you will need 50 to 200 ppm of bleach to water. Add 1-2 teaspoons of bleach to a quart up to a gallon of water will give you this concentration (depending on strength/percentage of bleach.) Sanitizers need to be on the surface for 2 minutes. A disinfectant requires 2400 ppm of bleach to water, or ½ cup bleach to 1 gallon of water. Disinfectants need to be on the surface for 5 minutes and then rinsed. It is recommended to add bleach to water, not water to bleach.
You can visit the Oregon Health Authority website for more information, www.oregon.gov/oha.
