Report of a chemical spill contamination the Elk River near Charleston, WV. Estimation of 300,000 affected.
Chemical Contamination of Water in West Virginia

Apparently no treatment regimen exists. Time and dilution to safe(er) levels are the order of the day.

Chemical contamination obviously presents a problem. Living in an area rife with old mines I'v always been concerned when pulling water out of creeks when camping/backpacking. Standard methods of disenfecting (boiling, treating) are good against natural contaminants but there is always still the risk of problems such as this.

-b

I think it should show everyone that you cannot be totally prepared. The other day, a local community had a water line break and the two little stores in town ran out of bottled water rapidly. How many of us have an actual 3 day or more supply of water for eating, cleaning etc.?

the blue Coleman in the picture and an additional Aqua Tainer have given good service for at least 14years.. together about 12 gallons...water gets rotated at the beginning of hurricane season with a little Clorox added...if you have a spare bathroom, a filled 33 gallon plastic trashcan can easily be stored in your shower...peace of mind

Depends on how you use it. Use less water by:
- Not washing up, use disposable plates, cups and cutleries (use less space then the water require to wash a equivelant of regular dishes.)
- Not flushing the toilet if you only peed
- Sponge bad/wet wipes, instead on a shower

(and ofcorse not water your garden, mopping the house, etc)

These meassures greatly reduces your water consuption. I have 55 Liters stored as emergency drinking water and a 6pack in the car. I also have other form of liquids (milk, juice, sportsdrink) and water in my cleaning spray thingy (no idea what it's called, but i normally use it to clean my bike)

I have a 30 gallon rain barrel in the basement. It was originally for a backup rain water supply for my Bonsai and house plants, but since I got a RO filtration system I don't seem to need it very often. Potted plants don't like hard tap water, and that's what we have. I keep an aquarium filter in it to keep it fresh. I run it for a few days every couple months, and top it it up with RO water.

I have another rain barrel outside in the summer, but that's in frequent use so I wouldn't count on it for survival.

I always have 30 to 40 gallons on hand. We have those office-cooler type 5 gallon bottles delivered every two weeks. We keep 6 to 8 of those bottles in a queue, drink the oldest ones first, add the new ones to the end of the queue. You don't even have to think about it. They deliver the same number of full bottles as you put out in empties. So if you drink a lot and put out many bottles, they will delivery many bottles. Likewise, if you go on vacation and only use one and put that single bottle out, that's all they deliver. The exception being if you don't put out any bottles (forget, or whatever). Then they deliver two, or whatever the default is that you set up for your account. Although having the bottles delivered is slightly more costly than you going and buying them at the grocery store yourself, it's worth it to me to have a "no thinking" method of water management.

p.s. - I don't know exactly how long 40 gallons would last the two of us in our household, but it should go pretty far if we conserve.

Old desert rat here. When supplies are tight, water is for drinking, period - at least a gallon per person per day. Remember you have water stashed in your toilet tanks and hot water heaters.


















M

I have enough stored water for a week of drinking for the five of us. It's heavy and takes up a lot of room -- if I had more room I'd want at least another barrel's worth.

The Water supplied to the 300,000 customer is taken from the river a mile down from rusty chemical storage facility tanks sitting right next to the water supply.


Time for a audit of any potential sources of contamination of my local water supply here;

http://goo.gl/maps/HWuoK

I have water stored in 5 gallon containers (some of the blue Aquatainers and some inexpensive white ones purchased new). Most of the time I have about 40 gallons on hand. While this is enough for short term use I do plan to pick up at least a couple larger vessels when I can. The 55 gal ones would be convenient for filling but not very portable.

the blue water cooler carboys mentioned by Haertig is a good solution for many...popular down here for hurricane season... you get the container at a reasonable price... get the pump so you don't have to manhandle the carboy

I'd bet it's still a net loss due to the number of restaurants, etc. that are closed until the water is back on. It also won't replace the ones lost in the coal industry due to the new EPA reg's even though their own studies say they won't help w/ greenhouse gasses.

um, I do.

About 10 gal bottled on hand, add 50+/- in toilet and hot water tanks; adding 60 gals of rainwater runoff in barrels this Summer

I've always not been a fan of bottled water, for the cost and waste of plastic and the space all the bottles take up but I'm faced with now the second issues with my own city water.
Our water has smelled like mold for a couple months and the city says it was due to spores in the lake or something and that its not a problem. But I asked myself if its normal for spores to fall in the water every winter and make the water small how come we have never noticed until this year? Apparently others have complained too as they have now said they are taking steps to eliminate the problem which probably means they will increase our rates again.
A few years ago we received our bill with a notice in it that the level of some chemical tested high over the last testing period but it was safe for adults and should only be avoided by infants. During the months prior to that my wife breastfed our first born so he probably got whatever chemical it was via the water she was drinking at the time and we had just started him on those baby cereals where you mix with water. So we started buying water for that but wondered if any damage had already been done and wondered why no notice except a letter in the bill after the fact.
I started buying bottled water but buy the larger 3L bottled which are thicker than the individual and take up less space and make less waste and are easier to re-use.

Just a reminder political comments are not allowed on ETS forums.

i bought this old still at a yard sale for $5 a few years ago.
not much use for it at the time but it seems like a "fun buy" for the money.last summer i really started using to make distilled water for developing film at home.now my wife wants the water for our plants we brought in for the winter so i'm running it every other night to make about five gallons a week.
we have a good source of spring water just down the street at Cold Water Spring and about 30 gallons of rain water in the basement that was for the plants.i have found a stock pot that fits over the top of the still so i could use a camp stove to boil water into the condenser if the power was off and we needed drinking water otherwise i could just run it if the power was on and get drinking water that way.

Well distilling as a way of removing chemicals has it limitations. It really depends on the temperature the chemical will also turn to vapor.