Industrial/agricultural water contaminants?

Like most of us, I'm fairly well versed on the risks and available treatments to make backcountry water contaminated by bacteria, cysts and viruses safe to drink. But I wonder about dealing with water that may be contaminated by various industrial chemicals, fertilizers, and all the effluvia that may find its way into surface and subsurface waters, especially in the frontcountry.

This may be a particular concern in the aftermath of disasters. Obviously, there are many such contaminants that simply cannot be dealt with by any any reasonable filtration or treatment process, but I wonder if there any available practical ways to recognize, identify or test for any of these contaminants, short of just giving some to someone I don't particularly like and seeing what happens?

Any thoughts appreciated. Thanks!

big problem.
I wouldn't touch it - if it was doubtful.
warning signs - color, odor, any kind of surface slick or discoloration, anything that poisons the grass on the side of the pond. don't drink it. you can't filter out chemical contamination.

Pete

Having done some work at a major research institute I've had the opportunity to check out their mobile field lab department, which is equipped to deal with that sort of situation.

Their mobile unit looked quite impressive, a modified army truck transformed into a small lab on wheels. I remember they had a number of suitcase-sized kits containing various reagents for detecting specific kinds of chemical contamination. IIRC, several such kits would be needed in an event of heavy contamination from unknown sources. There was also a portable XRF device used as a quick but not very precise means of identifying some types of contaminants (heavy metals probably).

It went well beyond my knowledge of chemistry but I was quite impressed by the amount of gear they had available. Even more so when I learned that it was only good enough to carry out very basic field analyses. For really accurate results samples would need to be examined in a proper lab back at the institute.

So I wonder what an average person could do when in doubt about contaminated water. Probably very little. It seems that even distillation cannot remove all the typical contaminants:

"Removal of organic compounds by distillation can vary depending on chemical properties of the contaminant. Certain pesticides, volatile solvents, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), such as benzene and toluene, with boiling points close to or below that of water will vaporize along with the water as it is boiled in the distiller. Such compounds will not be completely removed unless another process is used prior to condensation."

http://www.ianrpubs.unl.edu/epublic/live/g1493/build/#target2

Tom L ... "Removal of organic compounds by distillation can vary depending on chemical properties of the contaminant. Certain pesticides, volatile solvents, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), such as benzene and toluene, with boiling points close to or below that of water will vaporize along with the water as it is boiled in the distiller. Such compounds will not be completely removed unless another process is used prior to condensation."

Tom ... an excellent quotation. And for me - this just goes to prove why it has been an absolute disaster to introduce these compounds into our world (on a large scale). I'm not against sensible uses of technology. But we NEED to take great care to prevent these compounds from getting into our soil and drinking water. And to be honest, we just have not done this. The same thing can be said about pesticides. Some of these chemical compounds are absolutely lethal chemicals - that is what they are designed to do. Kill life. Yet, we happily spray them all over our gardens and croplands, and imagine that our environment will be safe. We have the illusion that if we are only ingesting pesticides in the "parts per million" then life will be fine. But how do we know that. It may be possible that some people are sensitive to these toxins, in much lower doses than parts per million.

Good post. No easy answers.

Pete

Distillation will remove MOST contamination, but as posted above it WONT remove volatile hydrocarbon contaminants that have a boiling point similar to water.

Distillation followed by filtration through activated carbon should render the water safe.

It is worth noting that some organic contaminates are long term cumulative poisons, and might be less of a concern in a short term emergency.
A level that is considered unacceptable in a piped city water supply that people drink for a lifetime, might be acceptable in a short term emergency.

In case of TEOTWAWKI, production and use of most toxic materials would probably cease, so it would not be a long term problem.

Respectfully... any reference to an authority saying that?

Cant find a link, but I have read this in a Royal Navy engineering textbook. something like

"drinking water on board HM ships is normally produced by the distillation of seawater. In the open ocean nothing else is required. Distillation removes not only salt but also other harmful material, viruses and bacteria. However in ports, rivers and estuaries, the sea water is liable to contamination by oils and solvents and depending on the boiling points, these materials may pass through the water maker. The distilled water should be additionally treated by passing through activated carbon filters in such places."

In an emergency I am afraid many people will be too thirsty to think much of health risks

If clean water is not stored before hand, people will drink whatever is available.

adam2 ... "some organic contaminates are long term cumulative poisons"

can you explain more. I'm not arguing with you. I would like to know more. do you know where they accumulate in the body?

Pete

Activated charcoal filters will remove some chemicals, notably chlorine. I have a dim recollection that iodine will also remove some metals. I wonder if typical county health departments have the capacity to test water samples for such contaminants? I'll ask when I meet with them next, and post their reply here.

I recall previous discussions here regarding the Big Berkey water filters, which claim to remove substantial portions of industrial chemicals.

Here is a listing of their claimed results: http://www.bigberkeywaterfilters.com/black-berkey-filters-2.html

Any thoughts regarding the veracity of such claims?

Here is a pretty extensive overview of various water treatment options and real-life application:
http://www.ianrpubs.unl.edu/epublic/live/ec703/build/ec703.pdf

Sounds like in many cases at least a two-stage process would be needed to purify heavily contaminated water. Also, each treatment method has various practical limtiations. For example, an activated carbon filter is effective at removing many organic compounds, but only as long as its capacity isn't exceeded. Once that happens, the filter will no longer work and may in fact begin to release the previously accumulated contaminants back into the water.

The claims sound truthful ...
with your typical caveats/lies included (ex 0 calorie per serving might be 0.5 kcal)
they're just leaving out the important part,
it only removes tiny tiny tiny tiny trace amounts of contaminants in city water
The kinds of trace amounts that show up on your city water quality report --
if water is too dirty (like car goes into reservoir), the city switches sources, they don't try to filter it

Its like refrigerator filters, sure if there is a boil water order your filter might help, but mostly what they do is improve taste

if there is a flood/storm... and a full tank of gasoline goes into your swimming pool ... your water filter might get you a gallon if you're lucky

Just to give you an idea, I read a filter lab report last year, a bacteria/virus and carbon + other stuff filter that could remove diesel/gasoline ,
good for 1000 liters,
can you guess how much diesel/gasoline it removes?
less than one teaspoon
0.04531 fl oz (fluid ounces) , 0.2719 tsp/teaspoons, 0.09062 tbsp (tablespoons)
0.08487 fl oz (fluid ounces), 0.50922 tsp/teaspoons, 3.9 x volume of a (plain) M&M candy (0.64 cubic centimeters)
So filter could handle 1 gram diesel + 1 gram gasoline + 1 gram pesticides in 1000 liters of water
They spiked the test water with 1mg/L gasoline but their testing threshold is 0.2 mg/L, so there could have been 0.19 mg/L gasoline left

FWIW, activated biocharcoal is not too hard to make

They accumulate in various organs, but mainly the liver. Those who handle organic solvents in their work are often at greater risk of liver disease, especially if the exposure was years ago before modern workplace safety standards.

(this is also true of animals, some authorities advise against eating the liver of livestock raised in non optimum conditions)

In Europe and presumably elsewhere there is considerable concern about "volatile organic compounds" entering the environment and various restrictions exist on uses.
Levels of VOCs in paints and varnishes for example have been reduced, and it has been suggested that water based rather than solvent based products be used where possible.

Perchloroethylene (perc) is a solvent used for dry cleaning and many other purposes. Unless inhaled or ingested in large quantities it was considered low risk, but is now considered dangerous in the long term.
Most organic solvents are not readily mixed with water (try mixing gasoline and water !)They do however dissolve in water in minute quantities.
An activated carbon filter will remove such contamination, although a typical filter can only remove minute quantities, this is fine in practice as only minute quantities CAN be dissolved in water,
In the example given of a car crashing into a reservoir, almost all of the gasoline would float to the surface and evaporate. Only a minute trace would dissolve in the water.

adam

thank you. yes I remember perchloroethylene. but it has been years and years since I spent any time with organic solvents.

I often wonder about all these women who work in Nail Salons - giving manicures to people. their stores are absolutely filled with vapors from acetone. the exposure must be enormous.

I had a father-in-law who died from a very rare problem with the nervous system. he exposed himself a few times to large amounts of insecticide when he was a young man. I definitely believe that the problem in his later years was caused by that early exposure.

are there any ways to get the toxins out of the liver?

Pete

Yup, but how much of "minute trace" is the question

Lots of household toxic chemicals evaporate or are broken down by sunshine/nature relatively quickly
but I haven't seen anyone recommend "wait two weeks then filter that stuff and drink it", the recommendation is usually switch to bottled water.

The local office of the state EPA might IF they have an on-sight lab.

That's a great resource. Thanks for posting it!