I've used an eye dropper bottle full of chlorine bleach for water treatment during canoe trips for a few years... easy to carry, cheap, and works well with my two bottle fanny pack (allows one bottle to "rest" while I drink from the other)<br>Now they have the new filtered water bottles with built in treatment filters... but I'm questioning if they are worth the big bucks...<br>Any opinions? Is the chlorine bleach treatment enough?

Do you have some brand names or websites? Clorine was the purifying medium ( and still is for municipal water supplies) until Iodine gained favor ( except for pregnant women and people with thyroid conditions.) Mechanical filtration is neccessary for cryptosporidium. There are some who debate this, but again municipal agencies consider mechanical filtration neccessary. The surest measure is of course adequate boiling. The site review on water filters will give you something to measure performance parameters by.

For quite a few years i carried nothing at all for water treatment and as far as I know, I never got sick. Most of this was in the desert Southwest.<br><br>I now use a Pur Hiker ($35) which rated well in comparative tests. It is quick and handy when you don't want to stop and take the time to boil. I still haven't got sick. I suspect that often the water out there, especially in really isolated places, is just fine, but the various agencies give very conservative advice, since a case of Montezuma's Revenge tends to spoil the national park experience. If ths is so, then anything you do - filter, chlorine, magical incantations - will seem effective. I have never seen a test of water filters that demonstrated their ability to clean highly contaminated sources. Boiling is best and doesn't cost big bucks.

Oops. Hadn't thought about of the Iodine/thyroid issue. My wife has a thyroid condition (she has to take medication daily), so I need info on chlorine sources, storage, and use, with respect to my PSK.<br>Any info/insights would be helpful.<br><br> .....CLIFF<br><br><br>A Happy Mardi Gras to all!

Cliff, is " I don't know?" an answer? I've always used iodine chemicals and even some mechanical filters have iodine elements. One of our British friends mentioned clorine as his prefered method. Perhaps he knows more? I only knew of the thyroid issue from camping with an associate with a similar condition.

I use 5 drops of chlorine in each 16 oz water bottle, allow it to stand for at least an hour... that's where a two water bottle belt pack comes in handy. I add a couple more drops depending on how clear the water is.<br> I also pay attention to the type of bottom the river has... sand or rock is prefered, if it has a muck or a lot of vegitation I add a couple more drops.. but never more than a total of 8 per bottle.<br><br>For camp water I use a collapsable jug and add 16 to 20 drops per gallon... again let it stand for at least an hour before use.<br>This seems to work quite well, our group has never had any problems with sickness on our trips, the only complaint is the pool water taste... which you get use to after a day or so.<br><br>One trick I learned was to pour the water back and forth between containers an let it stand a few minutes before drinking... seems to release some of the chlorine to improve the taste.<br>

Chlorine dissipates into the atmosphere through the water surface. The more surface area, the quicker it will dissipate. Folks who "age" their water for aquarium fish will add aeration stones on an air pump to speed the process. Thousands of tiny air bubbles increases the available surface area geometrically.<br><br>Your sloshing the water back-and-forth between bottles has the same effect. Don't start your sloshing until you've left the container sit for the recommended time to purify the water. Aeration beforehand would reduce the amount of chlorine available to kill organisms. Likewise, be sure to close the bottle to reduce dissipation through the top.<br>

http://www.mcnett.com/Camping/index.html<br><br>You may be interested in another product that has been widely used by backpackers (esp ultralighters) for the last couple of years. Aquamira -iIt uses activated cholorine dioxide which is the product used by many civic water treatment plants. (Pure chlorine is not used as much as it was years ago.) The small downside to the product is that you have to mix the two chemicals -wait several minutes and then add to your water then wait several more minutes for the mixture to kill the baddies. It works BETTER than chorine tablets iodine drops or bleach because it can kill even cryptosporidium. When used in conjunction with a physical pre-filter to screen out the debris and sediment it is an effective water treatment. Now you can also get a 650 ml water bottle with an integral carbon filter to remove the iodine taste as well for the best of all worlds.