Water Purification

[Ray Britton]

Hi Tenderfoot.

I am new to this site and to this forum......
What answers are you looking for?

As per my previous post, this subject can be confusing as most people use the wrong terms for what they wish to do to their water, which then makes it harder to get proper answers.

For example, hardly any of us actually want to purify our water, while we are outdoors. Is it also worth noting that water companies don't purify our tap water either, they simply 'treat it'.
If your water company actually purifies the water they deliver to you, no one would ever get 'hard water' as the calcium would have been removed during the purification process.

To be honest, I have no idea why many bushcrafters use millbank bags, as they were designed for military use many many years ago, and not for being used in the UK. They are OK for what they are, but are also big and heavy, and easily replaced. Maybe it is the same reason folks also use military issue machetes' (while military folk refer to them as tree beaters, to emphasize how useless they are!).

Finally, as per my initial posts on this site, I am not an 'expert' but did teach water acquisition to military students for a while, based on official government (MOD) figures.

Just as an aside, I was given two bottles of mineral water the other day....I happen to know the exact extraction point for this water, and it is in fact identical the the source that my local water company use!
So, at many stores customers are happily buying the same water they get from their taps, but only a lot more expensive , as they see it as the healthy option

 

[MrEd]

'Safe to drink' is a somewhat bold statement MrEd!

By common contaminants, I mean nitrates/phosphates and suchlike.

The norm on this type of forum is that someone with the appropriate expertise would have responded by now, however, this debate appears to be floundering?

boiling water to make it safer to drink has been done for, well, ever i guess. I would gladly drink water filtered with a millbank bag and then boiled. in fact i have. i dont think its that bold a statement. You can do a lot worse than carrying a milllbank bag - as for size and weight they role up to nothing (single person ones that is). obviously choosing your water source sensibly is an important factor aswell

granted chemical pollutants etc wouldnt be removed but i have already conceded that point

 

[wentworth]

Hi Harley,
Are you camping solely downhill from farms?

Where I live, the creeks only start 200m up the ridge, on which there is no housing. This water is probably safe to drink as is. Boiling definitely makes it so.

Looking on a topographic map at what is upstream is the best bet with water purification. If you find your water highly contaminated with chemical runoff, maybe it's time to walk further afield.

 

[silentpaddler]

Reading all this info here has got me wondering now...we use an MSR pump filter with a ceramic cartridge...I've always viewed it as almost
overkill because the water in most of the lakes we visit is pretty much drinkable as is...don't know how much I would trust the filter if travelling
abroad...a good thing to get informed about, for sure.

 

[Harley]

Hi Harley,
Are you camping solely downhill from farms?

I'm not seeking advice my good chap, my interest lies in the use of water treatment products in all conditions.

 

[sirex]

i use aqua mira. Its brilliant stuff, and i wouldn't ever go back to purification tablets since using it (soapy tasting water is horrid)

 

[Ray Britton]

Which aqua mira product do you use? The tablets or one of their filters.

From what I have read of you above post, it sums up the whole issue of water treatment (not picking on you, just making the point).

Most of us call the tablets water purification tablets, but they do no such thing at all! All they do is sterilize water (for times when you cannot heat the water), so if you have access to a fire you may as well use that instead, as it is free Whether we use tablets or boiling, all the baddies will still be in the water, but they will be dead (well most of them). Likewise, any solids,farm chemicals or dirt will all be in there too.

 

[Martyn]

As far as I'm aware, there aren't any portable systems that remove all heavy metals, chemicals, solutes, salts and wotnot. Passing water through a charcoal medium allows some of the pollutants to be adsorbed into the charcoal, but it's not a complete process. I think the best you can hope for in a portable (backpack) system is sub-viral size filtration and some charcoal adsorption. Beyond that, it'd have to be some kind of portable distillation process - not sure how practical that is, or whether the cost to benefit ratio is worthwhile.

 

[Ray Britton]

Hi Martyn.
With the exception of the heavy metals (but I would not want to remove them anyway), there are portable systems you can buy. There is one I have in mind, but for the life of me cannot remember what it is called.

To make things worse, I have even used this system several times myself !

It is basically a gravity system, which you need to invert one part into a cup shape, then place it onto the filter, which in turn is designed to sit directly onto a '58 pattern water bottle.

It is all black in colour, and was (maybe still is) on issue to the forces. I had it issued as well as the PWP trekker travel well. But the cup type filter was also useful as it would filter out chemicals (with the chemical warfare type in mind).
Someone else on here will surely know which one it is, and put me out of my misery

 

[Martyn]

You cant filter stuff that is dissolved, like you cant filter salt from salt water. You can adsorb some chemicals, but that's not strictly filtration, it's a molecular level attractant, but the process is not a complete one. Charcoal is one of the best things for adsorbing chemicals and the chances are, your black cup filter thing, was just a charcoal filter.

PS - why wouldn't you want to remove heavy metals? Arsenic is a heavy metal and is fairly common in the ground near old textile mills.

 

[Ray Britton]

Hi Martyn.

You wrote:
PS - why wouldn't you want to remove heavy metals? Arsenic is a heavy metal and is fairly common in the ground near old textile mills.

To be honest, I have never come across an old textile mill away from civilisation, as they tended to to be built around or within habitation (as they needed workers, and were the first industry to remove the population from the country and into urbanisation). They also often are near a fresh supply of water, so my choices for water would be from a tap or from the running water supply. Also, can YOU actually see the arsenic in the water to know if it is there? If so, then just like the rusty brown water in the Forest of Dean, avoid it.

I sometimes think that folks get too worried about what actually gets filtered out of their outdoor water, and just how much is is sterilised...Yet happily drink their tap water at home without a clue as to how is has been treated.

The people living near the old textile mill you describe will most likely be drinking water from their taps which has been taken from the water supply near the mill, and it will contain just as much metal as the water by the mill itself (the days of ONLY collecting from reservoirs are long gone, and gone forever).

It can be amusing to see the 'treated' water in a treatment works after it has been treated yet still full of small fish, which are only sieved out at a late stage (some even making it into customers homes from their taps). Then of course the water leaves the treatment works, and heads into the trunk mains, which have thousands of leaks in them to let in debris and disease . After that it heads into small diameter pipes, many of which are still lead with all its known problems (and also making metal filtration at the treatment works pointless). Or it may go into the original black poly pipes, which are cancer causing. Oh, and lastly it heads into our houses to travel around copper, steel, brass and aluminium and to pick up more traces of metal.

As this was not enough added debris in the water, it only contains enough chlorine to sterilise it until it reaches you property (max three days from the treatment works (including mini reservoirs) and will also totally evaporate within thirty minutes of coming from the tap). Then of course every time the fire brigade, water company, builders or 'bin cleaners' use a hydrant to fill their tanks, this can also disturb your pipework and add a fair amount of dirt into your water supply.

I would also say that your bath water would have more aluminium in that almost all river sources if you have a hot water cylinder at home. The aluminium sacrificial anode in the cylinder is fairly large, but only takes around twenty years to fully dissolve into the water you draw from it (and drink directly, if you fill kettles or saucepans from the hot supply).

As for picking up arsenic going past an old textile mill, some of the water which comes from/ rises from the ground fairly near to me (think Mendips and Bath) would have fallen as rain when Jesus was roughly ten.......After two thousand years in the ground, picking up metals and calcium, do you think the ten seconds it takes to flow past the mill will add that much? (that is banter BTW).

Just some food for thought.

Edited to add: After a quick net search, the gravity water filter is the BCB Ranger Travel Well. There are two versions to this as far as I am aware.

 

[sirex]

Which aqua mira product do you use? The tablets or one of their filters.

From what I have read of you above post, it sums up the whole issue of water treatment (not picking on you, just making the point).

Most of us call the tablets water purification tablets, but they do no such thing at all! All they do is sterilize water (for times when you cannot heat the water), so if you have access to a fire you may as well use that instead, as it is free Whether we use tablets or boiling, all the baddies will still be in the water, but they will be dead (well most of them). Likewise, any solids,farm chemicals or dirt will all be in there too.

actually i called em purification tablets as i think the brand name of them is "puritab" or something similar. -- they're horrid anyhoo !

its the aqua mira 2 part liquid i use, its not a filter or a tablet.

it all depends on what your doing really. - i always set off with water for that day so id only obtain water for the second day's hike, and its hiking not really bushcrafting, so i'm more likely to be on a mountain than in a forest. Likewise boiling isnt really an option as i need several litres for the day for 2 of us and i'm using gas to heat.

On an open fire, in a lower area with animals about id proly use millbank (or maybe filter if i owned one) then aqua mira..... maybe even then boil anyway just to be sure.

Horses for corses, but id say if you're a person that uses tablets and nothing else, try aqua mira cos its way better. Hell, if i recall correctly its what they use to treat the water of major cities in some areas, so im ok with it.

 

[Ray Britton]

Hi Sirex.

The two part system you use is a good choice for hiking. I tend to use the 'travel tap' in similar situations, which works very well (even taking some of its annoying design features into consideration ), until it is a very hot day and I am very thirsty...In this situation the temptation to unscrew the cap and drink from the bottle is very strong (to increase the slow flow rate into my mouth).

I only mentioned purification tablets, such as the puritabs you don't like, as they don't purify water at all, so have misleading names!

The sad thing about using purification tablets, is that we tend to drink the water straight from our water bottles, and so get the full effect of the chlorine. If we could find a way to leave the water out in the open for a bit, some of the nasty taste would go away.

 

[Outdoor_Guy]

Hi,

Water purification tablets are easy enough to carry but does anyone have a good setup (from organic materials) for distilling water? Obviously, its easier enough with the correct gear but Im wondering if anyone has any tips using things you could find...

 

[MK-MIKE]

I tend to play safe. I have a small katadyn hiker filter (0.3 micron filtration with activated carbon for 'contaminant' removals of most nasties like agrochemicals/ heavy metals) and then I use biox (chlorine dioxide) for 30 minutes. I do occasionally filter then boil for a good 5 minutes.

To date I've not had any bugs from water (could be the water was fine in the first place but I don't fancy taking chances)