Maybe I missed this info some place, but I still need to find out how much bleach to add to creek water, say per gallon, to make it safe to drink? We are now re-located away from the city and have an all year creek on the property. It is fast flowing on shale and very clear. Thanks to anyone who can supply answer.

-- D.J. Phillips (gardengal@land.com), November 22, 1999

Answers

From the Clorox site...

Link

-- John (jh@NotReal.ca), November 22, 1999.

Assuming CLOUDY water the numbers are:

1 Qt needs 4 drops 1 GAL needs 16 drops 5 gal need 1 tsp

Assuming CLEAR water the numbers are:

1 Qt needs 2 drops 1 Gal needs 8 drops 5 gal needs 1/2 tsp. 55 gal gets 5 1/2 tsp

This MUST be JUST BLEACH, with NO scents or anything else. (5.25% sodium hypochlorite ONLY)

You MAY make a bleach substitute using Swimming Pool shock treatment or "burn out" treatment. This MUST BE ONLY 65% Calcium Hypochlorite with NO anti-fungals, OR CLARIFIERS>

In an EXTREMELY WELL VENTILATED (read as OUTSIDE) area add 24.5 grams (about 10 Tablespoons) of th eshock powder to one gallon of water to make a 5.25% solution. DO NOT USE A REACTIVE CONTAINER (read as metal). Five pounds of dry shock will make about 92 gal of bleach, which willl treat 706,560 gal of clear water or 353,280 of cloudy water.

PS the chlorine gas bleeds through the plastic of plastic bottles so ove rtime you need to add more bleach.

Thanks to Ken Seger

BTW you should let the water sit for 30 minutes and be sure that you splash treated water on the cap, threads, lid, spout, funnel or whatever the container has.

Chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), November 22, 1999.

Maybe we can get Ken or Linkmeister to link to Ken's site because ther is a LOT of info on water there. Among other things that NEED to be read if you have relocated to a country stream house.

Chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), November 22, 1999.

Hey, anybody out there know how to translate these measures into litres for an numeric illiterate like me.

-- alkjdf (slkjf@slkjd.com), November 22, 1999.

alk, I don't have the URL any more, but Health Canada has a good bit of easily understandable information on purifying water and gives a table of bleach:water from small to large quantities in liters and gallons.

(Please note that when comparing bleach:water ratios from different agencies, any discrepancies are due to whether the water referred to is from the tap, creek/river/lake ["wild"] or flood.]

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), November 22, 1999.

I was ready to use the Bleach method for our local ponds until I came upon several threads that stated the Bleach * WILL NOT KILL* pathogens such as Giriada aka "beaver fever." That stuff is potentially deadly.

Am I wrong here?

-- RJ (LtPita@aol.com), November 22, 1999.

I am contemplating using roof run-off. (Roofing material is metal(galvanized surface).)

Will giardia and any of its pathogen friends be a problem? Other ideas/issues?

Thanks

-- Mr. Bob (thebobster@delphi.com), November 22, 1999.

Here's an excellent source that was posted on the TB2K prep forum All you want to know about water treatment. (8 drops of clorox bleach per U.S. gallon is what they recommend, btw.)

Water Treatment FAQ

-- Chris (#$%^&@pond.com), November 22, 1999.

Birds, racoons and other roof climbers can release giardia into your roof runoff.

Giardia is survivable, it's just not too pleasant [snif] for those around you for a long while and sometimes can be extremely intestinally painful for a few weeks.

-- giardia lover (contractedit@2x.com), November 22, 1999.

In the TimeBomb Prep Forum look under the category for... Water & Water Storage Threads...

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and- a-one-category.tcl?topic= TimeBomb%202000%20%28Y2000%29%20Preparation%20Forum&category= Water%20%26%20Water%20Storage

Some threads...

How much clorox in 55gal,is it drinkable

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id= 001QSY

Have you checked your water that you stored earlier?? I just did and - --

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id= 001ffa

Just browse. Good luck.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), November 22, 1999.