Can I use a storm-water pond as a back-up source of water?

Storm-water ponds are the closest alternative source of water for many people living in urban areas. In an emergency this source of water may be all that is available to you.  Eventually any water you have stored will be consumed and the water in a storm-water pond may be the difference between life and death.  With the proper treatment your local storm-water pond can be a great backup source of drinking water.

Industrial storm-water pond (source: info.evergreen.ca)

Storm-water presents a unique set of challenges during treatment. Because storm-water ponds collect surface water, the water is exposed to all the contaminants on the ground in the catchment area. This includes but is not limited to pesticides and fertilizers applied to lawns, motor oil and gasoline leaking from vehicles and litter like cigarette buts. It all ends up is the storm-water pond. Those chemicals are already in storm-water ponds on a normal day. During an emergency there may be additional contamination from sewage runoff from an overloaded or broken sewage system. The water in the pond will also contain all the microorganisms like ecoli, giardia and cryptosporidium normally in surface water. Any one of these will make you very sick if you get infected with them.
Finally, there will be high levels of nitrates in storm-water ponds. Too much nitrates consumed by young children can cause blue baby syndrome.

The first step in treating water from a storm-water pond is straining. Straining the water through a cloth or loose sand filter will remove large particles (ones you could pick up with your fingers). Remove as much of the suspended particles from the water as you can. Straining the water first will extend the life of your proper water filter.

If you have a clarifying agent like aluminum sulfate, this is the best time to add it to the water.  It will make contaminants too small to be filtered become attracted to each other and become significantly larger.  Larger particles are easier to remove from the water. Let the water sit still for at least 30 minutes without disturbing it.  All the newly formed large particles (called floc) will sink to the bottom.  When you take the water from this container, make sure you leave the majority of the settled material at the bottom of the container.

Urban Storm-water pond (source: greenbmp.blogspot.com)

The next step is to filter the water. Filter the water even if it looks clear, the human eye is five times too weak to detect dangerous levels of particles. Filter the water at least once through an activated carbon filter. Activated carbon is known to remove many different chemicals from water including pesticides, chlorine and fluoride. Activated carbon is not the same as charcoal. Charcoal is similar, it can remove toxins from water but it is nowhere near the efficiency of activated carbon.

The third step is oxidation. Oxidation will help with disinfection as most disinfectant chemicals are also oxidizers. Chemicals like sodium hypochlorite and potassium permanganate are both oxidizers and disinfectants. Oxidation will break down many of the remaining contaminants and inactivate many of the remaining bacteria. Keep adding the oxidizer/disinfectant till you can detect a residual after 20 minutes. The 20 minutes is the minimum you should wait for a gallon of water. Wait longer for larger volumes. This is because oxidation is a chemical reaction that isn’t instant. It needs time to complete the reaction.

The fourth step is to filter the water again. Filtering again is necessary because the disinfection/oxidation step will create some potentially carcinogenic byproducts. We filter before oxidation to minimize the amount of chlorine (or other chemical) and to limit the possibility of forming dangerous byproducts. We filter the second time to remove any byproducts that have been formed.

The final step is to boil the water.  This will help with disinfection, but the main goal of boiling at this point is to remove any volatile chemicals.  Any chemical with a boiling point lower than water will be removed after boiling.

A note about disinfection.  If all of these steps are followed there is no need for a step dedicated for disinfection.  Between the oxidation and the boiling of the water any microorganisms will be inactivated.  If you are storing the water for a long time then add some sodium hypochlorite for a residual disinfectant.  The residual disinfectant will prevent the water from becoming recontaminated before you drink it.

One additional possible step is to aerate the water.  Ponds are frequently stagnant.  Stagnant water is green with algae, it smells bad and tastes worse. After the water is made potable, transfer the water back and forth between two glasses. This adds oxygen to the water and will make the water taste better.

This may seem like a lot of work for something as small as a storm-water pond.  What I have described are the basic steps to turn the potentially toxic water in the pond into clean and safe drinking water.

Water Preparedness: Common Beginner Mistakes

Are you thinking about starting to store water? How about emergency water treatment? Getting started can be a very daunting task. Where should efforts be focused? What pitfalls should be avoided?  This article will explore a few of the mistakes I see people make when they start to take their personal water security seriously

Don’t be left without potable water. Avoid beginner mistakes. (source: always foodie.com)

The very first thing to learn is that there is no magic bullet. There is never a single product or technique which will always make water safe to drink. Combining, knowledge, multiple storage/treatment techniques and multiple products for storage/treatment is the best way to guarantee a safe source of drinking water for yourself and your family.  This logic or philosophy of combining as many protections as possible is used by municipal water systems all across North America.  It is referred to as a multi-barrier approach and it boils down to having many different protective measures to prevent contamination, in the event that one barrier fails, there are still many others in place.  To put it in layman’s terms, when it comes to water security, it isn’t a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket.

Marketing campaigns will make all sorts of claims about water products. Some will be irrelevant, like claims of BPA free plastic when the product is made from a type of plastic that never had BPA. Other claims will be over stated. The claim that is most often overstated is the number of times a water treatment product can be used. The quality of the water being treated is too variable for any company to give you an absolute number of times. This might not be done to deceive you. It could just be that the water they tested the product with was easier to treat then your water. Remember that no product will make the water perfect.  They will make the water safer when used correctly, if used incorrectly many water treatment products can make the water significantly more dangerous to drink.

Water needs to be stored in an appropriate container. This container needs to be able to physically hold the weight of the water and not leach any chemicals into the water. Assuming any garbage can sized container is appropriate will at best lead to soggy disappointment and at worst a severe case of gastrointestinal disease. For more information on water storage, read The Why? How? and How Much? of Water Storage?

Once your water is stored it needs to be kept safe. Water can become contaminated at any time. Anytime the container is open there is potential for contamination to occur. Read this article to find out what to do when your backup source of water becomes contaminated. The assumption that water only needs to be treated once is false. What was once safe to drink may be very dangerous when you need it if your aren’t protective of your supply. Water can turn stagnant when stored for long periods of time. Stagnation while not a health hazard is a taste hazard. Stagnant water tastes bad. Adding air to the water is how you relieve stagnation. Adding air is as simple as passing the water from one glass to another repeatedly or stirring the reservoir. The goal is to increase surface contact between the atmosphere and the water. It is important that aeration of the water will also remove the remaining chlorine (if any was present) in the water. If you are aerating the reservoir make sure you add some more disinfectant. Do this so you can keep your disinfectant residual high enough to keep the water contamination free.

Another mistake people make, is they store water but make no changes for reducing the water they use. Forgetting to change behavior during a crisis is probably the biggest mistake beginners make. Different situations require different behavior, this applies to your personal water use. You will be amazed at how much water is used if you aren’t careful. What could last a week might be used in a day and then you will understand the true value of water conservation. This mistake can also happen in more than just your water use.  For more information on water conservation read why water conservation is a prepper’s must do.

The single biggest mistake beginners is they assume that they can learn how to treat water later. Later becomes too late and then it can become fatal. It is very difficult to learn something complicated like water treatment when your life depends on it. Learning as much as you can before an emergency strikes is the single best thing you can do to stay safe.

This article covers just a few of the common mistakes I see people make when they start taking their water security more seriously.  There are many more mistakes that can be made and no one person has the perfect solution to them all. Water security is something that needs to be tailored to each person or family’s needs.  Have you found any common mistakes while preparing for water shortages? If so, leave a comment below, I would love to hear them.

Lead (Pb) In Your Water?

I get asked a lot of questions about lead in water supplies. Questions like how dangerous is it? Or how much is present in their water? Or where does the lead come from? And what can individuals do to remove lead from their drinking water? Since lead can cause brain damage when ingested, these are all very important questions that need answers. Be careful of the dates in this article. They will vary largely depending on where you live as different jurisdictions banned lead at different times. Another thing to note is that on average drinking water only counts for 20% of American’s lead exposure (according to the EPA) and total exposure is what causes health problems.

Soruce: science.howstuffworks.com

Lead can be very dangerous in water supplies. If consumed in large enough quantities it can cause severe brain damage, kidney damage, anemia and there is some evidence that lead can cause high blood pressure.  Compounded on this brain damage is what happens to the larger community if everyone is drinking lead contaminated water and significant percentage of people are suffering from lead poisoning. Costs for healthcare (monetary or increasing disease) increase significantly with lead exposure and with that a decrease in quality of life.  They younger you are the more lead exposure affects you (including before you are born).  This is because growing children absorb more lead from the food and water they drink. Also because they are smaller, they can hit toxic levels sooner.  Finally, lead has a cumulative effect on the body. Your lifetime exposure determines if there will be any negative health effects.  Some lead will remain in your bloodstream for the rest of your life, and most will end up in your bones.

If you are on a large municipal system there is a good chance the monitor for lead. In Ontario, Canada, the Provincial government forces every municipal system to test for lead twice a year throughout the system. Any sample that exceeds 0.010mg/L will be reported immediately to the local health unit the ministry of environment. The resident will be informed shortly thereafter. If you are curious about lead levels you can find the results in the Annual report for the municipal water system. If you are more proactive you may even be able to volunteer your home as a sampling point for a lead testing. Failing that you can always send a sample to an environmental laboratory.  Calling your municipality will get you the information of what they are doing to control lead.  They have more options available to them than any individual does.

Lead gets into water supplies in three main areas. Into the source water from natural deposits or from lead based pollution. Finally, and by far the most significant source of lead is from plumbing with lead based metal fittings. Many alloys contain lead. Even lead free metal fittings can still contain lead and even buying top quality fittings still poses a lead risk. Any solder made before 1986 likely contains lead, sometime upwards of 50%. If you live in an older home (pre 1930′s) there is a chance that you have a lead service connection and possibly lead plumbing.

Homes less than five years old also can have lead problems because the water has not coated the internal plumbing with scale. Scale is a build up of minerals on the wall of pipes and reservoirs that physically separates the water from any potential lead.

Lead Pipe and Copper Pipe (source: winnipeg.ca)

Lead was used so frequently because it is very easy to form into useful shapes. Shapes like pipes, valves and curves. Lead is very soft, that’s my it can make so many useful shapes easily. Lead on it’s own is often too soft for retaining the shape you want, especially if there is any stress on the metal. However mixing lead with other metals like brass, make the brass easier to work with and give the lead more rigidity. Copper was mixed with lead a lot less often then other soft metals. This is one of the reasons pipes were switched to copper. However fittings are still often made of brass because it is easier to make complex shapes like valves in brass. Remember that even “lead free” brass still has some lead in it.

Because lead is in older solders, flux and metal pipes, most of the lead enters the water while sitting in the household plumbing. Typically overnight when the water sits still in the pipes for at least a few hours. Lead needs time to be absorbed into the water (or leached from the metal). The longer water touches anything with lead in it the more lead enters the water. Lead absorption is also influenced by pH. The lower the pH (more acidic and therefor more corrosive) the greater ability the water has to remove lead from other sources. Raising the pH will help reduce the amount of lead that leaches into your water, it will also encourage scale formation. You can mimic corrosive water by grounding electrical systems to metal plumbing.  Grounding electrical systems to your plumbing is bad for your plumbing and helps lead enter your water.  BUT PLEASE GROUND YOUR ELECTRICAL SYSTEMS SAFELY AND ACCORDING TO CODE.  Temperature also affects lead absorption. The hotter the water the more likely there will be lead in the water and the water’s ability to carry water increases.

Scale Formation In Copper Pipe (estimated 20 years of scale growth) (source: ryan-technology.com

So what can you do about lead in your water? First, get your water tested. Knowing there is a problem is essential because you can’t see, taste or smell lead dissolved in water.
Second, always flush until the water is as cold and stops getting colder. If your home is older than 1930 and you don’t know for sure that your service connection isn’t lead then flush for an additional 15-30 seconds to make sure you are getting water from the street. This flushed water doesn’t have to go to waste. It can be used for non-consumption purposes like washing and gardening.  Flushing may not be a viable option for you if you live in a high rise building as the pipes may be too large for you to flush economically.
Third, never use the hot water tap for consumption purposes. It is better to boil cold water if you need hot water.  Lead affects children and pregnant women significantly more than it does grown ups.  Small amounts of lead that are harmless to a adult, can be highly toxic when introduced to smaller bodies.  You can buy a water filter that is capable of removing lead from water.  If it is not specifically designed to remove lead then there is a good chance that it doesn’t remove much lead at all.  Because lead has been such a big issue in the past, there are a lot of fake and ineffectual “lead” filters out there.  Double check the manufacturers claims with independent information or get the water tested.  Don’t forget to change the filter often otherwise you will expose your water to VERY high levels of lead.

Water Survival During the Zombie Apocalypse

First off a bit of a disclaimer, I am fully aware that zombies are not real.  I am however highly entertained by zombies and all things undead.  Since the Omega Man Journal is about water and survival, that lead to the obvious thought experiment of what challenges a zombie outbreak would have on our ability to get safe drinking water.

Zombie Rage Face (zombieambience.com)

The first thing to appear after the dead rise will be panic. Fear will be rampant and many people will be operating on their fight or flight instincts others will be holed up at home. This includes the people who work at municipal water treatment plants. Water facilities, although automated still depend heavily on people to operate them. When those people stop going to work or are already zombie chow then the water will stop shortly thereafter. To see what it would look like when a water system gets shut down and roughly how long it would take read Grid Shutdown: How Long Will The Water Last. The same will be true of the sewage systems. Read Grid Shutdown: Why Is There S#!t In My Basement, Sewage Emergency: Thunder Bay Flooding and A City Without Sanitation to see just how disgusting our once clean (or not so clean) cities will become.

Zombie Horde (geektyrant.com)

Speaking of sanitation, people will die from unsanitary conditions. That means dead bodies, not just zombies, but regular dead bodies. Cholera is an excellent example of a waterborne disease that is a direct result of decomposing animal tissues in a water supply. Thirst will drive people to the nearest supply of water, then many will die on the banks and contaminate the lakes and rivers. Remember at this point I’m not talking about zombie contamination of water sources. That’s coming up later. This is a real danger when thirsty people or animals die in water supplies.

Depending on how zombies are created there may be a serious water vulernability. There are already bacteria, viruses, parasites and other micro-organisms that use both water and human bodies as part of their natural life cycle. Typically we call the effect of these micro-organisms “water borne disease”. Also there are already parasites that can take control of other organisms even to the point of making the host suicidal. Specifically there is a fungus that will radically alter the behaviour of ants turning them into zombie ants. (read more about zombie ants).  We are talking about total control of the host for the benefit of the parasite. Finally there are countless micro-organisms and insects that thrive and depend on rotting flesh to survive either for food or as a vital part of a life cycle stage like maggots turning into flies.

Bacteria thrive on and cause decomposition of deceased organic matter

Those three characteristics which already exist, put a zombie making organism on the edge of being possible. Nature has already made all the organisms necessary to create a zombie, luckily for now the necessary skills are in different organisms and target different organisms. The problem is, if nature caused one organism to eat rotting flesh, it can teach another organism to do the same. Same thing with learning to disperse through water and to take control of other organisms.

Zombie Ant With Fungus Growing Out Of Its Head (nationalgeographic.com)

Let’s assume this is the cause of zombification, what then can anyone do to protect themselves? The good news is that modern water treatment is very good at removing and inactivating micro-organisms. The combination of chemically assisted filtration and disinfection should (if done correctly) remove 99.999% of micro-organisms. Depending on the size of this fictitious zombie bug/parasite/virus it might be possible to remove even more than 99.999% if it is on the large end of the size scale. If it is a virus, which is the smallest type of micro-organism then removing 100% of the z-virus will be next to impossible. That means we better hope that there is a disinfection method that can kill the virus either chlorine, UV, ozone or boiling.

Zombies Again (beyondhollywood.com)

One thing many people haven’t thought about when they are talking about zombies and water.  Water is very heavy.  If you have to haul water from its source to your secure facility it will become very difficult to run at the same time.  Now vehicles are an option as are hand carts and if you have the resources pumps and pipes are best.  Just remember that they are all noisier and may attract unwanted attention from nearby zombies.

Those are some of the challenges I see affecting our ability to drink safe potable water in the event of a zombie outbreak.  I tried to be as true to real science as is possible when talking about zombies.  At the very least I hope you were entertained.  Can you think of anything I missed?