Nice info, Tom, although it just goes to show the wisdom of "not putting all your eggs in one basket." Even these carefully manufactured water supplies ended up contaminated from a failure along the way. Regardless of whether it's a compromised seal, tiny crack, burst container from freezing or whatever, it's good to have more than one water container in case Murphy comes knocking.

Theoretically, clean water in a clean, inert container should stay that way indefinitely. But that's in a perfect world, as this lifeboat supply example shows. If someone wants/needs self-stored water to keep for a long, long time without changing it out, then maybe they just need to accept the inconvenience of assuming that it needs purifying in the event that they ever need to drink it.

I have always liked this idea. A glass-lined water heater is probably as inert as you'll get and you can store a lot of water and keep it fresh. However, one concern I have with such an arrangement (and I meant to comment on the other water thread in LTP where such an inline storage option was mentioned) is isolating the water in case something happens to the quality of the incoming water supply. Could be a widespread failure like the Milwaukee crypto incident, or just a localized one like a sinkhole down the street causing sewage to contaminate the water main leading to your house. By the time anyone is aware of the problem, your tanks might already be contaminated with bacteria or chemicals that shouldn't be in there.

We also equipped the life rafts with a reverse osmosis desalinator (mil version of Survivor 35) for producing freshwater from saltwater. Our testing has shown that these units will filter out microorganisms down to a 4 micron size which will remove giardia and cryptosporidium parvum but not E. Coli or Salmonella (0.2 to 4 microns). We're considering adding an additional filter (0.45 micron) to remove those germs. A disinfectant would be required to remove any viral contamination. As these RO units are designed specifically for desalinization, I don't know how well RO units for purifying freshwater would perform.

Regards,

Tom

That's an interesting article, thanks for posting. However, it seems like scientist are coming up with a new danger everyday, almost to a point where we shouldn't be eating or drinking anything. I think if you look hard enough, you'll find danger in almost anything.

I'm not saying they aren't correct in their findings, but like the article stated, even at a "staggering 700ppt" (<--very dramatic wording), that's still way below offical guidelines. So it's not quite the hidden killer that we should be worried about. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a "poison". I suppose if we were consistently drinking 3 year old bottled water every day, than it might be some cause for concern. But if we're talking emergency water storage, I dont' think it would be very high on my danger list. I'd rather take my chances with trace amounts of antimony than dehydration.

One thing they dont' mention is, how many of these toxins are already in the water we drink? How do we know the water from the tap doesn't contain an even higher concentration of more harmful toxins? And does the water stop absorbing the toxin after a certain amount of time?

Here we go again. *anything* can be toxic if you have enough of it.

From the EPA: http://www.epa.gov/ttnatw01/hlthef/antimony.html
"...the average concentration of antimony in meats, vegetables, and seafood is 0.2 to 1.1 parts per billion (ppb)."

And the "staggering 700ppt" in your bottled water would be 0.7 ppb, in other words, about the same as in your food. Relax.

On the other hand, virtually all bottled water DOES contain potentially deadly amounts of DHMO. Among other nasty aspects, DHMO contains hydrogen, the chemical widely thought to be the cause of the Hindenburg disaster.

I had forgotten to warn people about DHMO. Good thing you brought it up, that could have been a serious oversight. The safest way to prevent ingesting DHMO is to boil your water for at least 30 minutes per pint of water to make sure all the DHMO evaporates before drinking. Then you'll be left with DHMO-free water. <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

DHMO... <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

DHMO is much possible hazard: http://www.dhmo.org/ !!! <img src="/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />


...for those who doesn't get it. Read the words Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO) carefully and remeber those science classes...

Took me a while to get this one, but I did! <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
Yes, the deadly hydrogen gas (LOL) <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Sorry, 700 ppt (parts per thousand) is equal to .0007 ppb (parts per billion) or .7 ppm (parts per million).

Regards,
Bill