Successful Ways to Accomplish Emergency Water Treatment
In the wake of natural catastrophes, such as Hurricane Katrina which destroyed New Orleans in 2005, the biggest need of the populace is fresh, clean water. Sadly, natural disasters can destroy municipal water treatment facilities and infiltrate water supplies with everything from bacteria to industrial waste rendering it unsuitable for human consumption. Although laws require cities to have emergency water treatment plans in place for just such situations, it’s still a good idea to develop your own emergency water treatment plan just in case the unforeseen should occur.
You need to start by knowing exactly what you could be up against. Contaminated water can contain three separate types of pathogens (disease-causing organisms) as well as unsafe chemicals. The pathogen category can be broken down into protozoan parasites, toxic bacteria, and harmful viruses. Pathogens which become part of the water system are generated from animal and human waste which is carried down into drinking water sources. Chemicals can come from industrial or storage facilities as well as from chemicals used to get rid of pests and weeds. Emergency situations merely exacerbate conditions that exist all the time.
Bigger contaminants can be removed from water as simply as by draining the water through a paper towel or coffee filter into a debris-free container. Bacteria and viruses, however, are too small to be successfully taken out of water using this method. Emergency water treatment plans, therefore, must include some kind of disinfectant that can kill these microorganisms. Iodine is probably the most effective disinfectant for water, much more efficient than the chlorine used in swimming pools. Protozoa, on the other hand, do not respond well to iodine. Therefore, you will need some type of effective filtering system to handle these pathogens. Even though boiling is the best method for eliminating protozoa from drinking water, if there are electrical outages boiling may not be an option.
Toxic chemicals don’t always cause the immediate health problems that pathogens do, but they can still damage healthy cells in your body and decrease your immunity so that you are more susceptible to disease. If the water is murky and seems to have been contaminated, you should never drink it until it has been detoxified. Water is crucial to the human body, though, so it’s important that you can have access to or develop a source of fresh water within hours of a natural disaster. You can live for several weeks without food, but you’ll only survive a few days if you don’t have water. Therefore, it’s important that you have an emergency water treatment plan so that you’re ready no matter what happens.
