At the risk of sounding a little preachy, I would like to say two things about Doug's post on "8 New Survival Kit Reviews:"
1) Thanks, Doug, for taking the time to acquire, test and evaluate all of this gear, all of these kits, and all of the little doo-dads some of us on here love so much. This is more than just a public service. Some of the information and knowledge on here might, just might, help someone save themselves when everything goes to hell in a hand basket and they find themselves in a situation they never even remotely anticipated.
2) All of this acquiring, testing and evaluation takes time - Doug's time. He's doing it because he's interested in it, he thinks it's important, and he's willing to share that knowledge. That time is worth money, which is what it costs to keep ETS up and running. So the next time you learn something in the forum or on the site, I would suggest saying "thanks!" by clicking on the "donate to the ETS Foundation" link. I've learned a lot in the few short months I've been perusing this site. That is worth something to me, and I'd hate to lose this resource, so I sent him some money. I would heartily encourage others to do the same.

Very well put.

Chris

Thanks very much for both your compliments and your solicitation for funds on our behalf. I forget, what was it we agreed to pay you for that? <img src="images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Re these new evaluations, when Doug says something like:

"The water treatment suggestions "for prevention of giardiasis" lists boiling for 10 minutes, a waste of time, resources and energy a survivor might ill afford..."

Does he mean that in a survival situation you're just not so concerned about avoiding giardiasis or what? How is it wasteful to boil water? I'm just trying to get the meaning of it.

Bear

Hi David,
Doug means that simply bringing the water to a boil is sufficient by itself. You need not boil it for any particular amount of time.
Stay safe,
J.T.

My understanding is that it will take a while for symptoms of a giardiasis infection to develop while you can die of dehydration quite rapidly. If you need to spend a lot effort to collect fire wood to boil water you may be loosing more water than you are gaining. Also as you boil water some of that water is being lost in the act of boiling. Not a problem at home on the stove where you can turn on the tap and get more. However, if you spend hours collecting the dew from leaves in the morning you will want to keep every drop. Of course, if combustible materials are plentiful and easy to collect and water is plentiful then by all means boil away.

Well, in the case of collecting dew, I don't think giardiasis would be a problem anyway, would it?

As I understand it, that has more to do with surface water like rivers and lakes.

Sorry for the confusion. J.T. pretty much nailed it. You only need to bring water to a rolling boil to eliminate any concerns about Giardia and pretty much anything else biological. Boiling longer requires more time, more fuel, which requires more energy expended to gather fuel, all of which are generally in short supply in a survival situation where you want to conserve both your own energy and any resources.

Dew is water condensed from the morning fog. Therefore it is theoretically distilled. However, remember that the collection surface may be contaminated in one way or another. The survivors of PT-109 learned this after licking wet leaves on their first landfall. Daylight revealed bird droppings on everything. Julia Butterfly collected water in the GALLONS daily from what must be the world's biggest dew collector. It still needed distilation from the oily soot of kerosene fires used to burn the remaining slash and understory from clearcuts. Still, the dry truth is tainted water is better than dying from dehydration if immediate need comes before the means to filter or sterilize. <img src="images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

Ewwwwww... I don't think I'd want any part of that action even if you did boil the water for 10 minutes! <img src="images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />