Posted by zog
on October 27, 2009, 6:23 pm
Water is a practical necessity of life, but it is taken for granted in the industrialized nations,because they have developed extensive-and for the most part-adequate water treatment, delivery and disposal systems.
Because water for the most part in most areas covered with municipal water is still cheap and relatively clean, little thought is given to the "what ifs", what if the plant breaks down, or there is a flood that destroys infrastructure, or a chemcial mistake at the plant where too much or not enough of a purification chemical is used, or perhps the lines get infiltrated wih contaminants?
All of a sudden your cheap and clean water becomes expensive-because it is not clean and a health risk, or it may just stop flowing entirely. Well. what then?
What then is YOU have to deal with it. Governments can and have provided "emergency" water for large populations before, but it is terribly inconvenient and not in any levels considered adequate, just "barely" adequate, and sometimes they just fail completely, like during the hurricane Katrina disaster. Everything failed then, no water, no food, no electricity, no getting saved from flood waters.
The easiest way to always "be prepared" with emergency supplies is just that, have an emergency supply stash. This can be as simple as keeping a few jugs of tap water or store bought spring or distilled water around, and periodically replacing them before they go bad, or more elaborate schemes involving multi hundreds of gallons water tanks with suitable purification systems attached. The later is hard with an inner city apartment, but quite doable out in the countryside where "stock tanks", made of steel or plastic, are common and are sold at farm stores, and cisterns that catch rain water are common as well.
But there's another "what if", what if you are forced out of your abode and have to evacuate to unknown country, and must garner and safely use what water might be available? Different story now, you are on your own, these are some of the alternative methods you may use:
The "last ditch" method is the easiest but the most questionable, and that is to just wing it, consume what water you find, and take a chance on health risks. There are *numerous* health risks with drinking suspect water, such as giardia, a parasite,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giardia
cholera, a bacteria that causes poisoning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholera
dysentery, caused by a variety of factors and can lead quickly to death because of excessive diarrhea and loss of hydration
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysentery
Or say just chemical poisoning, from industrial spills, accidental or illegal, or excessive agricultural runoff, or any number of reasons, to name just a few of hundreds. In other words, this is a bad idea if avoidable.
One of the more common, and by far the lightest weight to carry, solutions to having drinkable water in an emergency "out and about" situation is via the use of water purification tablets, typically made from iodine. The water tastes rather nasty after following the instructions of dissolving and letting it stand in your canteen or container, but it becomes drinkable enough for emergency use when you are on the move and can't stop to boil water. Sources are drug stores, camping stores and even the outdoors section in like walmart carry some brands. Cost is a few dollars a small bottle of tablets. They also make chlorine tablets as well, your choice there, both have positives and negatives to them, but either will work in an emergency.
Boiling remains the *method of choice* to purify water that is suspect of biological contamination. It just works. It won't remove chemical contamination, but sure will kill bacteria and viruses. A vigorous boil in a pot for five minutes followed by a long sit and cool down period will just about get anything possible that could harm you, and remains the number one recommendation of the Red Cross, FEMA, and various other emergency agencies. Many municipalities who have been struck with contaminated water in their lines have issued "boil water" directives before.
Prior to starting the boil with your "wild" water, try to use a clean cloth of some sort to prefilter your water, to remove any of the larger particles that might be there. You may have to drink boiled lake water, but it doesn't have to LOOK like you just raided your aquarium either...
Mechanical filters are good for this task as well, and numerous brands are out there for sale. These range from very small ones that resemble a drinking straw (there are others out there, this is just a good overview article)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4967452.stm
to small "pump" type filters, here is a products search so you can see the range of prices and styles, to see what might fit your uses or budget the best
http://www.google.com/products?pump+camping+water+filter
I think the above type devices hit the sweet spot with portability, usefulness, cost and effectiveness, for an individual on the move in rural areas who needs access to clean water fast.
I have a few brand X cheap models that I keep in various areas, one in the go bag, one in the medkit, one in the car kit, etc. Being rural and "evacuated in advance", my needs are quite different from those with a heavier urban lifestyle and living arrangement whose only source of potable water is the muni supply in an emergency. If you need to move on out, to bugout, you need a good pack and lightweight gear, so you can get yourself as far removed from the danger zone as possible in the shortest time frame, because you stand a good chance of having to hike it at some point, and certainly for safety and security if you want to move in further back in the woods to avoid further social nastiness.
If you are a large group, and/or will be restrained to only getting as far as you can drive, then just taking your home filter unit with you is the best bet. I am a big fan of he "Berkey" series of gravity filters
http://www.berkeyfilters.com/
I have two of the stainless steel units you see on that page, and they work just great. They can put out roughly a gallon an hour, which is more than ample to keep a family or small group in drinking and cooking water, and the elements last for thousands of gallons, then can be cleaned, and good to go again for several cleaning cycles.
In actual daily real world use, just for two people, I have had to clean ours once in five years, using well water that has been prefiltered with a string element first, 20 bucks any hardware store, goes inline in the cold water delivery feed to your sink, anyplace you can fit it where it won't freeze.
What happens is the lower parts of the berkey filtering units or "fingers" start to clog up, but the upper reaches remain good. The water still filters, it just slows down dramatically. A few minutes with a plastic scrubby on the elements and they are good to go again. And being gravity powered-dump the water in at the top, withdraw the purified water below from a spigot, they are about as easy to use as anything can get. They aren't *designed* to be lockdown portable, but I see no reason why they couldn't be included packed into your gear, and even on foot with a large group, one person could be the dedicated "filter bearer".
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