lived pretty well? we survived as a biological population, but life was pretty short - average life spans were (off the top of my head) in the 40s or 50s, infant mortality was routine, and death from infectious diseases quite common. Urban environments exacerbated these conditions. It took centuries for Europe to recover from the Black Plague(s).

This does drift away from the original thread. I will reserve the water in my tank, flush by pouring water directly into the bowl, and when in doubt, boil the water. I like tea anyway.

All common sense precautions. Very wise.

Tea, beer, ale, and wine were all popular in part because there was far less chance of getting sick drinking them instead of water straight from surface sources. When they were laying rails across the Rockies Chinese workers were favored because they had a reputation for being 'healthier'. It is suspected that this had to do with their drinking brewed tea instead of drinking water straight from ditches like the westerners did.

Their more frequent washing, boiling of, clothes and bedding may have further helped by killing lice and limiting diseases. Staying clean, bathing and doing laundry, and preparing food and drink became the basis for many Chinese run businesses in the west.

I don't think ceramics are porous enough to allow bacteria to live deep inside it in dangerous volumes. Overfilling the tank with warm water and a good dose of chlorine bleach should effectively wipe out the 'organics.' Though I think most people would make tea with tank water if the option was available.

Chemical contaminants are a bit trickier. It depends on what you've put in the tank; and that's difficult to know for certain. Ceramics are less vulnerable to leaching than, say, polyethylene, which is notorious for lasting contamination. Scrubbing with soap and warm water should reduce the risk, and the ongoing dilution from use should reduce levels over time, but there's no way to know the exact levels. If you were desperate enough to need that water to stay alive, I guess you would drink deep and take your chances.

Bacteria are living creatures just like us. Deprived of food, water, shelter from harsh environmental conditions they die.

Most municipal water supplies are chlorinated and they work hard to make sure that water that leaves the plant has enough residual chlorine to fight off incidental contamination from human hands and infiltration from loss of pressure.

In one well publicized case in the 80s a DIY plumber working on sewer line tied into a water line and created a situation where a small but steady amount of raw sewage was pumped into the water main. This went on for some time. After a time local plumbers started getting calls from homeowners complaining of reduced water form from their shower heads and faucets. The plumbers find the aerators and shower heads clogged with little black and white specks. They clean them out and flow is restored. But after a few days the problem returns.

After a time people start asking questions about what the material is and where it is coming from. They ask the water plant operators. They sample the water coming from the plant and find no specks. They take a sample to a state lab and testing comes back that he sample is black bits are composed of undifferentiated complex organic material and nitrogen compounds, and the white stuff is cellulose. In non-lab speak - feces and toilet paper.

There was, needless to say, an outraged reaction.

The sewage was tracked back to the botched plumbing job and the situation corrected.

The good news was that nobody got sick. At least not beyond the psychological effect. The system worked. The residual chlorine in thousands of gallons of treated water effectively killed the bacteria from a few score gallons of raw sewage. The people living at the house where the sewage-to-water connection was made were most at risk. Because they were drawing their drinking water from the location where the sewage was most concentrated, and where the chlorine had had the least amount of time to do its job.

Before anyone gives up on municipal water and shifts entirely to bottled water for drinking you have to understand that municipal water supplies are tightly regulated. Bottled water is much less well regulated and tested.

Not all water supplies are chlorinated. Our local water association only chlorinates one a year when they clean the storage tanks, and they don't floridate, either.

I was just curious, thinking perhaps of some family who doesn't have our interests.

Sue

the tanks are a great place to test out small containers to see just how WP they are..no joke.a bit of string attached to keep them from getting into the "works" and left alone for a few weeks and you will get a good idea of just "waterproof"a match case is.i have done that with things like pill bottles and urine sample jars that i was thinking about using for wood matches.all that motion from filling and emptying dunks the test object around to give it a real test.left alone for a week or two should do it.

Canoedogs, I never would have thought of that in a million years. It's a whitewater simulator disguised as a commode. Awesome.

No doubt you are flushed with success at developing this technique...Thanks for sharing....

I'm with Doug, I would never have thought of that!

Shake, rattle and roll underwater!

Sue