So I'm thinking it would be a good thing to practice water purification before I have to do it in a crisis. Some people advocate boiling then MP1 tabs. I'm wondering though...as a way to practice, do I go to the local river, grab some water, go through the process and drink it? We're not known for industrial waste here in the water supply.

What do you think?

If you boil the water that is enough. Using MP1 after is mostly a waste.
Save the MP1 for when you can't boil.

You probably don't need to practice; there are instructions on each package. 1 tab per liter.

One thing you may want to practice and read up on is how to find and recognize a clean water source. This will ensure you start with the cleanest water possible.

billym is right. There's not much to practice:

Put water in bottle
Drop tab in water
Put on lid
Shake
Wait

Boiling water and using the tabs is redundant. You don't have to do both.

Kevin B.

While it is a simple process, it is not a bad idea to practice anything. If nothing else it can teach you that you can rely on they tools you choose to help you survive.

You may want to add some coffee filters you your purification kit, use it to filter out the big gunk before you add the pills.

And yes, boiling is redundent to chemical purification.

'We're not known for industrial waste here in the water supply.'

No, you're known for chemical waste. Not just Iowa, but the whole farming Midwest.

If you anticipate having to hunker down and depend on local water, I would gather some of that water in a clean glass jar and have it tested by the land/water people, and find out what you're dealing with. I would suspect chemical fertilizers, herbicides and nitrates/nitrites from livestock, in addition to septic seep.

You will have to specify what you want it tested for, and why. You can't just hand them a jar and say you want a water test. They would probably automatically charge you $10-15 for a basic bacteria test. That's useful, but it's not all you need to know.

Then, you would know what you really need to protect your family. You may need something more elaborate than MP1 tabs.

Some people think livestock waste just evaporates like movie bullets, but it doesn't. I was reading about a site in MA or CT (etc) that was a livery stable for 45 years around the turn of the century (1900). Sixty-five years after it ceased being a livery stable, it was still polluting the local water.

Whoever invented the phrase "S**t Happens" knew what he was talking about.

Sue

Practice is always good. I think the best time to practice with chemical water cleaners is the first time you buy some and right before they expire and right after you buy your replacement batch. May as well use the old ones for something contructive instead of just throwing them away.

Can practice turning the water container upside down and letting some treated water run out to clean the bottle threads.

Can try out the taste and if you plan to add flavor to it like Tang or Emergen-C or Zip-Fizz or Airboorne, etc to see what you might like best.

Can practice using a cup instead of the water container for adding flavoring. I hate a sticky water bottle. Plus if you can't clean it out well, it might make the next water treatment less effective.

Finally can practice making sure whatever you decant water into is clean. It wouldn't do to treat the water and make sure the threads are clean only to get sick drinking out of something that isn't.

I don't mind using stuff up to practice when I can learn something from it before I HAVE to use it to survive. Even tools. They can be easily replaced when damaged in a control environment.

Practice might just mean making the difference to turn a survival situation into a "camping out" until you can find your way out or be found or help arrives sittuation.

Your point is well taken Sue. I guess it's been a while since we've had a major fish kill due to pesticide run off, so it slipped my mind.

Perhaps a lake would be more isolated from farm runoff...