Emergency water purification question

Hi,

I live with my wife and three kids in East Central Florida, on a salt marsh with brackish water. We have been thinking about how to prepare for a disaster/emergency situation. We have stocked on food, gas, solar battery rechargers, etc. but we are still confused about what to do about water. We live on city water and if the our city looses power (which happens *very* easily down here) we are stuck without water. During the hurricanes, we also had brown, dirty water coming from our faucets. So what should we do in case of emergency? We have three large water sources:

1) The brackish water in the canal we live on. Here is an abundant supply of water, but it still has salt in it (only sawgrass grows in our marsh). Even if we desalinate it, we still would need to purify it. Still, it would be the one I would prefer using, if that is at all possible.

2) The community swimming pool. Plenty of water there, but it is chlorinated and has plenty of dirt in in (ranging from hair to dead insects).

3) A nearby lake. Fresh water, but known for amoebas (and alligators, but these are not a problem).

I have found this Katadyn Base Camp water purification system which is affordable and simple but it cannot remove salt.

So my questions are:

a) is there any cost effective way to use the brackish water of our marsh in case of emergency? If yes, how? if not:
b) if I get the water purification system above should I use my swimming pool water (which is kind off disgusting, but it is within walking distance) or should I use the lake's water (wich is about a 30min drive away, thus using up gas).

Also, depending on the time of the year, rain water might be another good option in Florida. Could somebody recommend a *cheap* but effective rainwater collection and storage system? More generally, what kind of container should I get to keep water for long periods of time (several weeks)?

Many thanks in advance for any pointers!

Welcome to ETS andrei, there are several ways to do this and I think benjammin would be a great help on this one. In my case, I use several methods for back ups but can get expensive but here are some ideas. I think if you want the best bang for the buck in an emergency use I would use the e-still http://www.zetatalk.com/food/tfoox152.htm at $200 which comes with charcoal filters which will convert salt water, urine and pretty much everything else to drinking water and the charcoal filters goes after Florida's big pesticide issues in the water. The draw back to this unit is it is harder to find these units and they are big and bulky and can be a pain to carry them on foot. Other options would be a survivor 35 for desalination and a charcoal pre filter or a Katadyne combi for pesticides and either boil the water or steripen it or MIOX it for viruses. The big things in Florida are the salt,viruses and pesticides which you would need to distill or RO for salt, boil,chemical treat or UV the viruses and charcoal filter to remove the pesticides. I think the E-still for around the house only is the best bang for the buck, we can go out to the ocean, pond or what have you and it takes care of everything. But mobile I use the other equipment. With a e-still for about a $200, I don't think you can go wrong. Now if you want a big system for the house for long term, benjammin would be a good one to talk to. Anyway that's my 2 bits and there are a lot of knowledgeable people here that have great ideas and I'm sure they will help you out as well.
Welcome again.


Check this thread out as well:

http://forums.equipped.org/ubbthreads.ph...true#Post122188

I have a E-still and a military survivor 35 off of eBay for salt water conversion, I have a steripen for viruses and a Katadyne combi for pesticide.

Some other options:
http://www.conquestinc.com/lifesaverdistiller.htm
http://www.aaoobfoods.com/distillationsterilizationinfo.htm
http://www.aaoobfoods.com/waterdistillers.htm
http://www.villagemarine.com/aquapack.html
http://www.sea-pack.com/seapacknoonsite.html

I would not recommend a Waterwise Distiller for salt water if you stumble on this expensive thing. It does not play well with salt water over time.

Survivor 35


E-still


Katadyn Combi

Sea-pack

In addition to what falcon5000 suggested check out the solar unit:

Solar Still

Pete

If you're in eastern central Florida, most likely in the event your municipal source becomes compromised the state and county will provide an alternative supply, up to and including having potable water trucked in by tankers etc. You should probably keep a 7 day supply of water on hand anyways, if you have room to stock it.

I wouldn't recommend using any surface water source here in east central Florida, especially during/after a hurricane or other flood related incident, as all surface waterways will quite likely be contaminated with a whole list of organic and chemical hazards that would require some serious processing effort to clean up. If you must, I would suggest trying to make use of groundwater sources instead, as that might afford you some isolation/filtration from the surface contamination, but you would still want to at least boil it, filter it, or chemically treat it, or a combination thereof. There are springs here and there all over central Florida that would make much more reliable sources to draw from. Barring that, find someone nearby if you can with a nice deep well that is prepared and has a means of extracting the water in the event the grid goes down. It might take some investigation, but it is well worth it if you are at all concerned you might need an alternative source, which it sounds like you are.

Florida is the epitome of the cliche "Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink". Bear Grylls' little escapade in the everglades was extremely risky, he is really lucky he didn't get a nasty bug the way he went about his business. Les wasn't so lucky, and the Georgia swamp water gave him a parastitic infection he dealt with for over a year afterwards. All raw surface water here is pretty much a no-no.

Of course the easy answer here is to store water -- which is cheap and easy to get before any major event. Do a search for how to prepare the water and store it long -term.

Its easy enough to get 5 gal buckets and prepare the water... the key is to actually do it.

I’m glad I live where I do, lots of water all over the place all year long. And there is a big lake 4-miles north of me with all the water one could want.



I agree with the post above, get some 5-gal water containers and store it now. Easy to do and not that expensive.

Dear friends,

Thanks for all your kind replies. I had no idea that the water issue in Floria was so hard. I guess the only safe and affordable thing do do is to store a 7 day supply of water for 2 adults and 3 kids. Using the water only drinking and minimal washing, what amount of water should I plan should I set aside and, no less important, what kind of container would you recommend? Is there something cheap and readily available to store water for my family for, say a couple of months at a time?

(Using buckets, or even my bathtub, will work for hurricanes, but for any other emergency situation this might be too little, too late depending on the warning time)

@Falcon5000: thanks for the welcome and for recommending all the gear. I will look it all up and read about it even if I do end up storing water at my home (that gear looks like something which I might want to have in all cases.

One more question, if I may: you mention pesticides. The canal we live on is on the Turnbull Bay Creek and it comes from a natural preserve. We have tides and some current, but nothing like the Intercoastal River so the water is comparatively more stagnant, in particular in our canal. Also, there are two golf courses in the immediate vicinity and these courses are often sprayed against bugs and, no doubt, the greens are also heavily treated. Still, people regularly catch and eat fish from these waters. I do not fish, but I do regularly eat the blue crabs which I can in my crabpot. Should I worry about these blue crabs being filled with all sorts of pesticides and other chemicals?

Again, many thanks to you all for providing your time and expertise!

Welcome to ETS, andrei. You mentioned water for a couple months in your last post. Is that what you're shooting for? Because that really changes the question and is really more a topic for the Long Term forum. Storing water for a family of five for a couple months is a lot of water and is not practical for many/most people. I use three gallons per person per day as a guideline for short-term emergencies. For five people (even if 3 are kids), that's 900 gallons for 60 days at a bare minimum.

Getting back to the canal/marsh--don't forget that conditions during normal times could be completely different than after extensive flooding or after a hurricane storm surge pushes all kinds of crap into the marsh. Flooded sewer tunnels and septic systems, flooded gas stations and factories, even flooded golf courses are going to unload a lot of chemicals and other nastiness that normally don't really get into the marsh. The community pool or lake may not be any different.

You already do store 30 or 40 gal of water in your water heater, Unless you have a demand water heater then you only have about 2 to 5-gal in it. You need to flush it out every so often to clear out the sediments that gather in the bottom of the tank. And I would also run that water through a water filter before drinking it. But it gives you a source of some water.


Are most homes in Florida slab homes with the water tank mounted up higher then the first floor? If so it may be easier to get the water out of the tank. I don’t know on this as there are very few slab homes in this area and I don’t know exactly how you do it there.

Check the link to see how much space you can plan on to store water. http://forums.equipped.org/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=131959#Post131959

Dear friends,

I am amazed at how many excellent replies I have received. You guys are fantastic, thanks!

First, all of you are correct: the hurricanes do make an ugly mess of the water around here. I have already seen 5 hurricanes and I have survived Charley's right hand eyewall (which was scary, real scary). Anyway, we do have a water heater of course (how could I possibly overlook that?!?!?!)! I have no idea how to get the water out of it in case of need, but the answer is one phone call away to the folks who installed it.

This elegantly solves the issue of water storage since there is always plenty of water in there.

Also, I did not mean to say that I wanted to stock up on water for a couple of months, but only that I wanted to store about 7 days of water for a couple of months (i.e. that I would change the 7 days water supply about once every couple of months). Sorry for being unclear about that.

Now I can purchase 12 gallons of water for immediate use, and have the water in the water heater as a 'stage 2' emergency supply behind it. That, I think, solves my problem.

Finally, I will get 50 water purification tablets for 5 bucks, and make sure I boil the water before drinking it, just in case.

Speaking of boiling, what kind of emergency use stove to boil water and cook food would you recommend? A propane? Alcohol? Butane?

Could you recommend a cost effective make and model?

How does this one look to you?

Again, many thanks for all your advice!

I'm glad you got the advice you needed, another thing you may look at is purchasing a of a water cooler and some extra bottles. You can get one for $99 at home depo, Lowes, etc.. And the refills you can get at Walmart for 25 cents a gallon($1.25 per jug Carbon filtered,Reverse Osmosis and ultra violet light for virus) . We have 25 gallons on hand (5 jugs)strictly from this and rotate 7 to 8 gallons a week plus we have food grade 55 gallon drums with water and another for fuel for the generator. If we get into a Katrina type disaster and the water does get chemicals then we would have to go to the ocean and try to draw salt water that is in deeper water to stay away from oil and gas which floats on the surface and hope no other chemicals go deeper. This would be as a last resort when all of our storage supply and swimming pools in the area are depleted.

Another convenient supplement to permanently stored water that seems suitable for Floridians, since you'll have some warning about approaching bad weather, is one of these flexible bladders that you can use to quickly turn your bathtub into an extra 45 gallons of stored water just before a storm arrives. There are a number of products out there. I've never tried any of these bladders but this is just one example that an ETS member brought to our attention a while ago.

Question back to benjammin,
I know petroleum based products float on the surface of water which reemphasize the need to draw from deeper water. But as natural disasters happens and more chemicals get dumped into the water and the need to try to use the water in a worst case scenario, is the main way to remove VOC (Volatile Organic Compounds) chemicals out of the water through RO filters or chemical treatment? Is there any other way around that besides RO filters or chemical treatment. I know you had mentioned earlier that the medicine that is getting into our drinking water lately can be killed by UV, how does UV effect VOC chemicals or active charcoal?

On a side note: When we had MMH (monel methyl hydrazine) and N2O4(nitrogen tetroxide)at the rocket ranch and during some of the spills, the MMH hit water and it made the chemical multiply like crazy and the N2O4 would turn to an acid upon water contact. The MMH seams next to impossible to break the bond with water and ended up a 2 week clean up from a 1 gallon spill and one techs DNA preferentially altered and one ambulance driver and crew injured on a rescue, and 1 ambulance destroyed and burned.


Thanks, I'm still trying to learn the new threats in our water system.

There is a drain on the bottom of your water heater. Hopefully it is pointed away from the wall, some installers have an odd sense of humor. It will look like an outside faucet with a small handle or it will be a plastic "wheel" with threads for a hose in the middle. The plastic ones are bad about cracking, even if you don't touch it. It doesn't drain quickly, it does help to open a hot water valve to let air back into the tank otherwise it will glug a lot. And be careful.

Distillation would probably take care of most of the contaminants, I would think. It would require monitoring the temperature of the distillation flask so that you could discard the stuff that boiled off below 100 degrees celsius, which would be the volatile organics (including ethanol, if you get really, really lucky in your contaminants), and stop collecting the stuff that boils at temps over 100 c. ( Disclaimer: this is based upon 2 semesters of organic chem 40 years ago, when the periodic table was a lot smaller and life was simpler; midway through the second semester, I blew up part of the lab in completing an assigned experiment involving nitro-toluene).

Maybe a black berkey filter?


http://www.berkeyfilters.com/berkeytech.htm

Hmm, well, not all pretroleum based products float. Some are miscible, and some of the distillates can actually be more dense, especially those that are emulsified with mineral components. As for VOCs, not all of which are petroleum based either, there are several methods depending on what compounds are present. Some VOCs are readily biodegraded, some can be captured by charcoal filtration beds, others have to be cooked off or decomposed ionically (UV, Ozone, even microwave). Recent EPA mandates are going to drive water treatment systems here in Florida and elsewhere into developing new treatment plants using UV (as with the Cat/Del UV system for treating 90% of metro New York's water supply) or Ozone, which is currently being recommended as the next primary treatment system here in Central Florida, to replace Chlorination as the primary treatment method in order to reduce the number of Chlorinated by products of treatment. Most treatment systems are targeted at either capture or neutralization or a combination of those processes, so with UV, ozone or chemical reaction to decompose those VOC compounds along with active charcoal beds and flocculants to capture the contaminants. If the molecular compound is weak enough that UV radiation can break down the bonds, then that is generally going to be probably the cheapest method, as the energy and storage requirements seem most economical of all the current proposed methods acceptable to the EPA.

Some of those industrial chemical compounds are pretty scary. In high school I remember we had to evacuate the chem lab because a vial of picric acid had started to crystallize. The same thing happened out at a Hanford lab in Central Washington and they ended up setting off the emergency sirens along the river corridor evacuating a lot of people in the area. That place can be downright scary at times, there's so much crap out there, and the state's only Extemely hazardous waste facility is right out there next to probably the biggest repository of radioactive cesium and strontium in the world.

As for the MMH and the N2O4, unless you are talking a massive release, I would expect that they would react out in the environment fairly quickly, so the biggest concern would be containment first, and removal if practical or in the interest of public health, but not if in a fairly isolated location necessarily. I believe you meant to say mono-methyl hydrazine, which is a rocket fuel component. Monel is a type of semi exotic stainless steel that I don't think you can get into solution with hydrazine in any form very easily, and not with any real industrial purpose I can find. But I am no rocket scientist either. In any case, methyl hydrazines pose a serious health risk, and if I were looking to remediate a spill, I would prefer to react it out if I had to get rid of or neutralize it quickly, rather than try and capture it. You should be able to reduce it to ammoniated salts fairly easily. N2O4 will react with the water to form nitric and nitrous acids, which will decompose further into nitrates following reaction to suspended solids and colloidal contact. If I had to react it out, I'd find some clay with a generous amount of colloidal constituents (cat litter?) and distribute that to the spill site. It should be easy then to disperse the nitrate products or collect them up as precipitates. I'd research it more, but off the cuff that is my first impression. For emergency response I'd be at level A suits and SCBA most likely, treat it like I would an iso-cyanate release (because of the volatility of the MMH) or methylene chloride spill(because of the acute exposure reaction).


I remember well when the Kerr-McGee plant blew up outside of Vegas. Weren't they also working with rocket fuel? Man, what an explosion!

Interesting, I had never heard of Monel until a month ago. Our lab was renovated back in 1976; a left over lab from the biowarfare era at Ft. Detrick and our two autoclaves were leftover Army/BW surplus. Recently, the NCI has been surveying lab space here and making provisions for updating some of the equipment and facilities. An engineer came to look at replacing our autoclaves and told us that our old autoclaves were made from Monel and that the recycling value of the Monel exceeded the replacement with new autoclaves, so we are getting new ones very soon.

Pete

I only know about Monel because I play a Bach Stradivarius trumpet and they use it for part of the valve assembly.

On a side note, has anyone ever used a steripen ? I've been looking hard at buying one of these for backpacking and hunting excursions, and would like to hear comments from someone who has experience with the product.

Thanks nursemike and benjammin; you are right benjammin, mono-methyl hydrazine is what I meant, my spelling and grammar is not the greatest. Thanks for the great info on the breakdown,I am glad to know that heading into UV (even with the steripen years ago)and charcoal filtration was a good move but I also realize as time goes on so does our technology and threats.

Ozone I looked at in the past and have briefly experimented with but it was for air pollution control only to find out years later it was causing a negative improvement to our health and eating away all the rubber in the car. (I had experimented with a Cosonka in the car/truck for years and it cased a lot of troubles with the electronics and rubber seals in the vehicle not to mention giving me a cough that hasn't seam to go away yet) (Too much ozone exposure I guess)

When I worked for Nasa for over 10 years in the past, I had worked with hypergolic fuels in SCAPE suits (Self contained environment ensamble)for many years and have been exposed by both MMH,N2O4 and Anhydrous ammonia which has cut some more years off me and after many years with the program and long drives the gas prices and future program vibility finally forced me to move on to a different field. But those years exposed me to a lot of different technology and when we did water treatment on the shuttle, we had allot of UV going on which led me into the UV area. I figured if it was good for Nasa then it was probably a good thing to go into. I'm still learning and I'm no rocket scientist but I have seen dome strange things while working there and a lot of disturbing things that never makes it to the press. Some things I guess the public doesn't need to know or mass panic can be a bigger problem I guess. Anyway the stress out there is unreal and it's like a burden has been lifted off the shoulder leaving. For example: If a meteorite was to hit us down the road and kill masses amount of people and there wasn't any know way to recover from it but to build a space craft and sit up there and watch it happen then I don't want to know.

Opps straying off topic again, sorry for the rant, anyway I am trying to learn more into the water aspect and your very fortunate to be at the ground level and I got a lot to learn benjammin. Thanks for the brief insight and that will point me into more technology's and I will look into ozone additionally again as well as the UV.
Thanks

jcurphy, I've been using a steripen adventure for awhile now and I haven't had any problems yet. The main thing with it is the water can't be too turbid (muddy or cloudy) a way around this is to prefilter it through a bandanna or I use a Katadyn combi filter which has a replaceable silver impregnated ceramic element and a refillable, activated carbon cartridge so I can clean up the water from bigger viruses and organic compounds (pesticides) and then I follow behind it with a steripan for viruses. I don't mind the two items as a combo, the UV treatment has been working well and I think in the future it may replace some types of chemical treatments. I tried the taste of a friends miox and didn't care for the taste and didn't care to carry along gator aid to mask the taste plus didn't like the dwell time either. The steripen is compact and I can drink the water now, not hours later. If you do get one, don't buy the solar recharger, it's a waste of money; but a portable solar panel, it will charge it significantly faster.

There is a rival between the steripen folks and the miox folks like GMC VS Ford. both are great products it's just preference to me. A good advantage for Miox is good for large treatment of water which I like but it takes awhile for the process to work and the taste gets better with time as it dissipates from the water if stirred and aerated.

http://www.katadyn.us/brands-products/ka...combi-plus.html
http://www.hydro-photon.com/steripen_products.html#traveler

Unless you're using some sort of pressure vessel, you cannot raise the temperature of liquid water over 100 degrees C (or whatever the boiling point is at your altitude). Temperature is constant during phase changes; adding more heat will simply increase the rate at which it becomes steam.

I'd agree with you that distillation is the only sure-fire way to get rid of the really nasty stuff.

The name of the game is free radicals. If you are looking to kill off any little germ in the water, then free radicals are the ticket. High valence ions and ionizing radiation breaks down the organic molecules and destroy the integrity of germ cells, in fact, all living cells disintegrate in the presence of free radicals, which is why we take vitamins called anti-oxidants, which react with the free radicals we are constantly consuming. Most organic molecules have weak enough bonds that UV radiation of about 10 electron volts is enough to break them, which is why UV exposure is a hazard for us. UV does basically the same thing the free radicals do. The difference is that free radicals can react to break the molecular bonds of one molecule, then move on and do it over and over again without ever binding up unless they encounter something like an anti-oxidant which captures them in a stronger molecular bond so they can then be neutralized.

So bombarding the water with free radicals and ionizing radiation works wonders for killing nasty little germs, and can help reduce other organic contaminants, though probably not enough to make a reliable difference. Chlorine has been the most popular free radical application for a long time, but because the chlorine ions persist long after application (which does have it's benefits, as residual chlorine can help to keep the water from being re-infected), and all that chlorine consumption and eventual release to the environment is not so desirable. Ozone breaks down after application fairly quickly, and UV is containable to the point of application, so although there isn't any residual benefit, there is also no residual debtriment, bioaccumulation etc.

Chronic exposure to Ozone causes emphysema. I know of a couple former dam operators that liked to walk the generator floor a little too much, and developed the disease.

I guess with free radicals being a key and UV ans ozone being good tools for breaking down the molecule bond probably explains how they are purifying water in Africa by using clear plastic bottles exposed to the sun for long periods of time. I wonder if something like a steripen with the low wattage output of the filament (which works great at killing viruses)would have and significant effect on petroleum, fertilizers and other man made products introduced into the water in a Katrina type scenario. The recent Myanmar disaster with more rotting bodies in the water along with chemicals (like Katrina) continues to show me that the old boiling and distilling water for water purifying water may not be enough with VOC's in the water. AS I look at the increase in coastal natural disasters globally are increasing, I am trying to find that one or a series of devices that I can use to purifying polluted fresh and salt water in the event of a disaster of this nature. Distilling water or RO with active charcoal pre filter with UV injection has been as close to this that I have come to convert contaminated fresh and salt water to drinking water.

As for the ozone, it was working wonders with the fires in Fla. plus any odors in the car when I experimented with it, but at the time the EPA never really had any good info on the health effects that I could find using it for what I did.I may have introduced emphysema to my self as you suggested being a non smoker to the levels of ozone being exposed. I know ozone dies off in 30 minutes usually but some times the Cosonka was left on in the vehicle when traveling from me forgetting to turn it off. I guess if I die off with emphysema down the road it will be a whole lot less painful than all the other things that I was exposed to working on space crafts.

I had three friends permanently disabled I worked with side ny side and they were assigned jobs ahead of me that ended up permanently disabling them. I was fortunate those days not to draw that winning job assignment. One was exposed to a material that he founded on the space shuttle payload liner on a trip back home to earth that has deteriorated his health from handling it, another had his DNA altered by long term exposure to Hypers, and the third took a radiation hit from a isotope that was thrown into the WCS system (toilet) from a stupid astronaut that decided to through a highly radioactive experiment in the toilet. Wat a job with no pensions, you work on cool stuff with extreme dangers daily with little pay and no retirement. Sign me up.....

Sorry about the rant again, thanks for the explanation and breakdown on this, it sounds like you have one of those fields with job security for a long time plus the benefits of vendor support for decades.

Andrei....We too are in FL....I'll tell you this.....buy bottled.....get it from the 'wholesale stores' (BJ's, Costco etc). As for the rain collection.....I tried this very very briefly. Just for chuckles we put a 33 gallon can under the roof during our usual seasonal daily rain.....the can filled in less than 2 minutes. Plan to have you system fill quickly and need to hold a lot but also plan for these very long times between rains (and they are getting longer)......good luck.