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Adding water after ginning, by overspray positively increases bale weight but at the potential of causing increased yellowness and grayness, thus lowering the color grade. At the same time, microbial acitvity will also be stimulated. While the dust potential data has not been gathered yet, there is reason to believe that the cotton dust potential of the water treated bales will be greater than the untreated bales since increased bacterial and especially fungal activity were observed. In addition, the greater fungal mass on the water treated bales adds an unnecessary potential health risk to the workers who will be handling the cotton in the mills. While adding water does inflate the bale weight, the added weight might be offset by penalties or a lower classification of the cotton due to increased yellowness and grayness. The change in color grade occurs after official classification; and it may or may not occur before mill consumption depending upon the storage time. But if the users of cotton adversely affected by excess moisture were to delve into the history of suspected bales, very likely the reputation of the gins and producers of such practices may suffer in reputation and possibly indirectly tarnish the reputation of the entire cotton industry. Additionally, the bales studied herein, were packaged in relatively impermeable polyethylene rather than the more conventional bagging. Further studies should examine the impact of permeable bagging.