A Safe Supply of Drinking Water

[OkieGentleman]

Any water you get in this day and age is probably contaminated by more than I really want to think about. I am talking about taking water from a couple of ponds that the only flow they get is run off from a local roadway and from lawns that are saturated with every kind of chemical you can think of, most of which I cannot pronounce. If throwing a pill into a gallon of water will remove 99.99% of those chemicals. I am all for it, tell me where to get them. I have my suspects, that run off from a Korean rice patty is less contaminated than the run off from my lawn, I know your pill will make that safe to drink, not taste good but safe. My neighbors and myself just had almost every lawn on this block, both front and back, sprayed with a per-emerganet that probably has a similar chemical formula to Agent Orange and when the snow melted it ran into the pond I am having to consider for a water source. That is the reason I invested in what I think is the best filter a civilian can get for water purification. The nearest clear mountain streams I can think of are down at Turner Falls, but I have not been there in 20 years, so it may be muddy by now.

 

[jrguns]

If I do the math. 100 cleanings and 3000 gallon life span you would have to clean them at 30 gal intervals. Correct?

But I do like your idea and PVC is cheap. Nice...

 

[jdgabbard]

Here is a great concept, rather then paying out the whazoo for some fancy dancy filtration system that is going to need replacement filters and/or cleanings, why not spend $100 (high end) for the pieces needed to build a simple distillation system. I.e. moonshine still used to distill water. All you need is fire to be able to run it....

 

[OkieGentleman]

jrguns Thanks for you input.

The filter might need cleaning every thirty gallons and it might not, cleaning of the filter is done with a scrubber, I think the life of the surface of the filter is about 100 scrubbings. I plan on putting a heavy cotton sock over the filter to keep the worst of the larger contaminants from the surface of the filter, mud, leaves, trash, etc. Remove the sock and wash to best of my ability, the clean filter and reinstall everything in tube. I figure that 6000 gallons of water for cooking with light personal hygiene will go a long way, I might not smell so good, but I will probably smell no worse than the next guy.

jdgabbard Thanks for your input

My problem with a distiller is the size of a distiller needed to make several gallons per hour, keeping a distiller that size fed with fuel and cooling the condensing coils to get water and not steam out of the distiller. I think a distiller looks good till you start having to feed it. Each new batch of water has to brought up to boiling (it takes a lot of heat to get even 30 gallons of water to boiling and keep it there) and you would have to be careful not boil the unit dry. I think this solution is more of a problem than a person trying to survive a bad situation has time to deal with.

Here is a question that needs an answer by anyone who can supply a valid answer.

How what contaminants can be in a pond fed with runoff water from a large neighborhood?
How many of those contaminants can be removed by boiling the water?
I am not asking the question to be sarcastic, I really would like to know. If anyone out there can tell us if the chemical contaminants in pond water could be removed by boiling and re-condensing the vapor back to a potable water, I personally would like your input. If you can, please point us to your information source.

Discussion of possible solutions to problems that might arise if things get bad are always good.

 

[BadgeBunny]

How what contaminants can be in a pond fed with runoff water from a large neighborhood?
How many of those contaminants can be removed by boiling the water?
I am not asking the question to be sarcastic, I really would like to know. If anyone out there can tell us if the chemical contaminants in pond water could be removed by boiling and re-condensing the vapor back to a potable water, I personally would like your input. If you can, please point us to your information source.

Discussion of possible solutions to problems that might arise if things get bad are always good.

I think that there is no one, definitive answer to your first question because each water source is directly affected by what is going on around it. What might be an issue for one water source might not be an issue for another. However, I do have this, which might help you decide may be an issue and what may not, in your particular circumstance.

http://www.deq.state.or.us/wq/dwp/docs/typcontaminants.pdf

You might check out the EPA's website for some information on the techniques used for the removal of various contaminants. Here's a link to their discussion of the removal of chemical contaminants from small systems. Granted, it's not much, but it's a start.

http://www.epa.gov/nrmrl/wswrd/dw/smallsystems/ccr.html

Also, here is an article on distillation of water. It discusses what is and what is not removed from water by distillation.

http://www.ianrpubs.unl.edu/epublic/pages/publicationD.jsp?publicationId=316

 

[GlockCop]

Maybe I missed something, but what about purification of the water i.e. chlorination, or UV?

If I gotta do something and I'm away from home, UV is the only way to go, IMHO.

 

[rlongnt]

Thanks, that's a neat idea. I do have a Big Berkey and think will build one of these as a backup/secondary using my old filters that still have some life in them.

Also, if you are using something like this in a real SHTF situation it would help to prefilter the pond water etc. with coffee filters or a T-Shirt to make the real filters last longer.

 

[Belthos]

http://laughingsquid.com/100-organic-dehydrated-water-in-a-can/

Organic dehydrated water in a can.