It looks like the people in S. Colorado will be looking at 'alternate water sources......

http://www.yahoo.com/s/838651

Hope they fare well.....hopefully people will learn....even your trusted supply can become contaminated......

Yikes...
I need a whole house filter pretty badly... Ugh.

Yep, the water wars here in Florida could keep me in business the rest of my career.

Sinking a well no longer seems to be the thing to do to ensure a good potable supply of household water. Between over-regulation, abuse, and the amount of crud going to ground, it just doesn't seem worth it. So where does a home go next? The best thing I can think of to do is use solar power to run atmospheric condensers, combined with preciptation collection (rain barrels). Of course now I hear the government intends to regulate the collection of rainwater by forcing inspections and using meters on people's personal tanks. If caught using a collection tank unregulated and unmonitored, the penalty would be significant.

PHRASECENSOREDPOSTERSHOULDKNOWBETTER. at it's finest.

Why??
"When the flushing of the municipal water system begins, boiling water will not be adequate to protect the public from consuming the water."

boiling water is no good ???

Chemical contamination as they purge the system.

Ridiculous.

benjammin:

the chem. they are reported to be using is clorine. boiling water will disapate clorine.

Yes, but during the treatment process the reactions will generate other chem by products that shouldn't be consumed as well. Probably not a big threat for most, but better to err on the conservative side.

Benjammen:

looking into the future,in case this happens to my area, I wonder if boil and chemical treatment would solve the problem. In Southern Calif our water supply is vulnerable due to open reservoirs.

Well, for the most part, it may seem ridiculous, but you should understand that some aquifer systems are fed entirely off rainwater, and I've sat in a couple meetings in which water critical discussions brought just such a restriction/enforcement issue to consideration. The main impetus for the consideration focused on commericial rainwater harvesting processes, but the slant was that the conditions would be imposed unilaterally, meaning ye old humble homeowner with a 2,000 liter tank out back would be subject to the same burdens by rules of fair principle.

Believe me, it polarized the conversations pretty darned quick, but it alarmed me that it was even being brought up.

Hmm, I have a 40 gal rain barrel that I collect rain in for my house plants and Bonsai. The hardness of our tap water is well over 20 grains, which is toxic to house plants and especially my Bonsai. They thrive on rainwater. Actually, I don't make an effort to keep my rain barrel sterile, so it's probably not very good to drink.

benjammin, who would have thought our water situation would continue to decelerate like this. Growing up in Fla, we use to drink out of the springs many years while growing up without boiling water or anything. Then as I went from skin diving to cave diving, I began to get ear infections from the higher nitrite levels from agriculture farming. Then the levels kept accelerating year after year and as the water temps begin to rise due to longer summers (global warming or what have you) we began to have the killer amoebas that was killing off the kids. Then more and more pesticides and petroleum entered our aquifer due to over development has made water even more difficult and now the latest threat has been medications, drugs and and other traces have been noted in the PPB (Parts per Billion) range. This is how the nitrides started in the early 90's when we first ran into it. It started in PPB then PPM and now............

Along time ago I boiled my water, then distilled it, then I had to use a carbon filter and distilled and UV'ed it. Now with medicine in it, I'm trying to figure how to solve that equation. I have a Pur 35 and a still to convert sea water to fresh but now our coast has increasing petroleum products in the water as well as feces from the cruse ships providing I don't get bit by a shark wading in ankle deep water.

Any ideas?
Any solutions?
We are at the next level and it's cranked up a notch.

Actually, I am in the water business in a bigger way. I work on major water/wastewater systems. Right now I am working as a consultant for one of the municipalities in central florida. Last year I was in Brisbane Australia working on developing/constructing a recycled water processing plant there. Berfore that I was in New York working on the 20 year dependability project, and before that in Baghdad working on their water problems. Water is becoming a bigger issue globally. Reverse Osmosis still seems to be the preferred water treatment solution for potable water systems with less than desirable intakes. Desalination plants are mostly just big RO systems, and so if I were to start a new business today, it would be manufacturing RO membranes, as the supply is not keeping up with demand at all, and the price for membrane is going through the roof.

Commercial UV treatment plants are becoming more plentiful, along with ozone treatement. In upstate New York they are going to build a $1.2 billion UV treatment plant to treat 90% of the water being supplied to NY metro.

The good news is UV, Ozone, and other treatment processes used to sterilize water also work well to break down and neutralize organic compounds like many pesticides and endochrine waste by-products (hormones, excreted medications, chemo waste products). Colloidal compounds and inorganics can be chemically precipitated or fairly easily filtered, so I wouldn't worry too much about the waste cycle making it's way back into the more modern water treatment systems. I would reconsider dropping a well in a lot of different places now. Unless you want to invest about $10,000 in a home based water treatment system, you might not want to just drink from any source anymore. Those days are going away.

Distillation still isn't a bad alternative. It won't get everything, but it gets all the really bad things. Distillation and then carbon filtering will pretty much get it all. Distillation is expensive, though.

Thanks for the info benjammin, that is interesting to note that UV does neutralize medical waste. I guess I'll stick with my distiller /carbon/UV filter system for now, the only bad thing about my system is it consumes a lot of energy. I need to see if I can convert to solar on that aspect as well. I'll bet down the road RO membrane waste will be an issue unless the membranes can be recycled 100%. Sounds like you have a very secure job for along time, I can only see water issues continuing to be a problem for decades to come.

"Of course now I hear the government intends to regulate the collection of rainwater by forcing inspections and using meters on people's personal tanks. If caught using a collection tank unregulated and unmonitored, the penalty would be significant."

I'm sure that this is just another way to tax rainfall or to control drinking water, just like they want to control the food supply. Enforcing it, however, may be something else entirely. After all, they can't really use the National Guard, because they're in Iraq!

If I understand correctly, in Australia the government already "owns" the rainwater that falls on your property.

Sue

I am getting a bit tired of travelling. I am also tired of being alone. After nine months together, I am sending my wife back to Denver while I stay here in Florida. It sucks, but that's the way it goes sometimes. In the past 5 years, I've been separated from her physically for over 3. Good thing our marriage is strong, but it is taking its toll.

I certainly don't feel special, more like Dirty Harry. When asked once about his monicker, his response was "every dirty job that comes along".

While not exactly to the point of monitoring rainwater collection/consumption yet, as of last year the Queensland government had already mandated that residents could not use the rainwater to water their lawns or wash their cars, as the necessity for conservation still required prudent use of all available water. If their "travelling inspectors" caught a homeowner watering their lawn or washing a car, they would get cited, regardless the water source. Best to have a bucket and washrag handy for one of the infrequent rainstorms.

benjammin:
Question. My pool is clean and filtered (untill the power goes out) and I use tricloro triazinetrione (clorine of a type sold in large buckets in Calif.) buy boiling my pool water is it afe to drink ?

big_al, here's a link to the MSDS (material safety data sheet) for this chemical. Keep in mind the MSDS relates to the concentrated form you buy in the bucket.

http://72.14.235.104/search?q=cache:EUAJu0RiNcMJ:www.bel-aqua.com/MSDS/OMNI/421351.pdf+trichloro+triazinetrione+msds&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6

dougwalkabout:
the MSDS are nice but only show the product in its solid form, there is no information what it is like when it is supended and mixed with water. Still working on this problem.

The link didn't work when I clicked it but what I suspect they're doing is sterilizing the system. In doing this they use a much higher concentration of chlorine. More chlorine creates more trihalomethanes (sp?) & those have a regulated maximum concentration.

Okay, the answer is not simply yes or no, but depending.

Assuming you've applied the chemical as directed and at the proper dilutions, and allowed enough reaction time for it to stabilize in the water, then the treated water ought to be not much worse than some public water supplies as far as amount of residual chlorine. You have to consider that this chemical specifically is intended as a disinfectant, much the same as municipal water treating system applications do, so it does little for any existing chemical contamination, such as detergents, petroleum products, pesticides etc that may have also contaminated the pool water.

Assuming nothing else has adulterated the pool as mentioned, then incidental consumption should not be a health concern. By incidental, I mean to say that you could probably drink a quart of the treated pool water in a day and not notice any ill effects whatsoever, especially if you boil it, as you will cook off some of the chemical in the process. I wouldn't rely on pool water as a constant consumptive supply, but mostly due to the fact that the water is not under controlled conditions (an open, stagnant water source). You could continue to use it as a non-potable source, for washing clothes, running the toilets, maybe even bathing in if you are careful.

The water we used in Baghdad had to be so heavily chlorinated that we weren't allowed to drink it, but we could bath in it so long as we avoided consumption. No one ever seemed to suffer any ill effects from it. You could definitely smell the chlorine. All the water we drank was bottled.

My guess is that if you boiled a gallon of fresh pool water for about 20 minutes, you'll have cooked off enough chlorine that it should resemble tap water. Bear in mind that other chemical agents added to water, such as clarifiers, ph adjusters, anti foaming agents, will not cook off so easily, and if you are adding such treatments you need to take that into account as well.

I've swallowed enough pool water in my days and never noticed any ill effects. I don't make a habit of it, but sometimes it is unavoidable.

I hate to say this, but there is less Clorine in my pool than in my tap water, as per test with a clorine test kit. My pool is within the required standards for pools. Thanks for all the help

I'll bet you're living near the treatment plant.

Nope the nearest plant is 15 miles away.

Strange. Too much chlorine is usually because of the residual they have to have at the farthest tap. Or maybe being at a local high point. If I see the professor for water transport tomorrow I'll see what else can cause it.

edit:
I've got the same problem.

Most likely the supply system analysis yielded a lower than acceptable level of chlorine at some point ahead of his tap, and an injector was added to the line. We have a few of those here on some of the suspicious longer runs.