Water Purification the "Quench" Essentials.

Most people already know that the human body is made up of up to 75% water and know that the average human can go up to 3 days without water. When it comes to survival and hydration, we want you to be informed with facts and concerns that are not "Watered Down".

I am almost positive someone in our family, our social surroundings, whether at work or at some other gathering has heard someone say, "I'm just so thirsty". The plain truth is by the time the average person feels thirsty they are already mildly dehydrated.

The average water consumed or drank in a day on average should be

MEN - 125 ounces or 3.7 liters FEMALES - 91 ounces or 2.7 liters.

These amounts will vary based on muscle mass, weight, height, and physical condition.

Let us first consider how we go about satisfying our THIRST. Right now, you could go into the kitchen and get fresh filtered water from a refrigerator, water purifier attached to your sink, or even a water purifying pitcher. Should you be out and about you could stop at any gas station or convenience store and purchase any number of brands or styles of bottled water. For the sake of argument let us assume our water purification items in our homes and our bottled water suppliers are not going to be readily available in a survival situation.

How would we go about getting drinking water without too great of a risk to our health and well-being? The obvious answer is to boil it, however you may or may not have a container to boil it in. Before we even start, we need to understand water types, bacteria, possible all natural sources and ways in which to purify water.

3 LEVELS OF WATER- Before we get SUBMERGED in our THIRST let us QUENCH ourselves in the knowledge of water types.

SURFACE WATER- Most readily available in streams, lakes, and rivers. However, it is at the highest risk of contamination as it is offered no protection from its environment. Animals drink and bathe in most surface water areas and it is most open to pollution.

GROUND WATER- Unless you find a natural spring coming up from the ground this water source will not be easily obtained. Although this water may be contaminated it is less likely as it is filtered through rocks and soil and mostly protected from pollution and animal waste or biproducts.

ATMOSPHEREIC WATER- This type of water is more captured precipitation as if you had a way to distil water or found it as dew on leaves or other clean natural surfaces and had a way to collect it.

A LITTLE WATER WON'T HURT YOU. This saying is not entirely accurate as a person could drown in a 1/4 of a cup of water or less. Let us consider all of the bottled water, purifier brands and types that in a survival situation are probably not going to be available. Things you may want to consider however are things like

Giardia- A unicellular protozoan parasite that can cause cysts to form through intestinal infection. Is usually found in fecal matter and is due in part to poor sanitation.

Cryptosporidium- This infection is worse than a simple bacteria or parasite and has an outer protective shell called an oocyst and can live outside the body for extended periods of time also is derived from fecal matter.

Clostridium Difficile (C Diff)- This infection can be life threatening due to colon damage such as perforations and in some cases can lead to blood poisoning. C Diff does not need oxygen to live and reproduce and although it is mainly found when dealing with antibiotics it occurs naturally in our guts and can derive from fecal matter.

Signs & Symptoms- Many of the signs and symptoms are the same; nausea, watery diarrhea, up to pain and tenderness of the stomach area or abdominal cramping and in some cases even bloating and vomiting can occur.

Prevention- Although in a survival situation you may not have soap, cleaning your hands as best as possible is highly recommended. Boiling water, especially distilling water, is highly recommended to THOURGHLY KILL BACTERIA almost all water would have to be boiled in a rolling boil for 15 minutes to kill some of the worst bacteria. Sadly, there are still no guarantees' unless you can distill water and have practiced the art and have the supplies to do so, boiling water is the best option.

Remember to set up a bathing area and pet area should you have pets downstream from your water source this helps to avoid contaminating your water collection area.

FILTERING THROUGH THE PURIFICATION PROCESS- Chances are you have either seen or made an improvised water filter like the one pictured above. The cone / funnel water filter can be made in 2-liter bottles, improvised with pant legs, or even made out of birch bark sewn into a cone / funnel shape. Although not a bad way to filter water it will not necessarily remove all the contaminates and bacteria you would need it to in order to make your water safe to drink depending on your water source.

Although this option would be much like distillation because your trapping condensation it would only give you up to 8 ounces of water daily and you would need at least 100 ounces bare minimum daily. The solar still is not a bad option should you have a way to store water and enough containers to store water for 12 days to have 1 days' worth of water it's not 100 ounces at 12 days you may get 96 ounces so this method could take up to 2 full weeks for one day of water.

THE BURN BOWL- In a survival situation time may be the one thing you have an abundance of. The process of creating a burn bowl will take just that time. From sourcing your wood to the repeated process of charring / burning of your wood to create the bowl shape and repeated removing of charred / burnt wood to create the size bowl you desire. Keep in mind once you have the bowl you will need stones free from moisture (moisture in rocks could cause them to crack or explode) to heat to place into your bowl to bring your water to a boil remembering it could take 15 minutes of boiling to kill all harmful bacteria that may be present.

THE SURVIVAL DISTILLER- There are videos online of how this specific distiller is made and people say it will even distill salt water. This is easy to understand as evaporating water and collecting steam makes sense (distilled water has no nutrient or mineral value) and seeing how you are boiling water you can place a small amount of the salt water once boiled into your drinking water to replace some mineral and nutritional value. Things to remember you cannot boil it dry residue much like brine will collect and this could diminish holding capacity and could contaminate or flavor your drinking water unfavorably. One thing I ask myself is how long will this last? Should you be able to suspend it over fire and not place it directly in fire it may last a decent amount of time. You would however need to carry this distiller at all times (the copper tubing and water bottle will fit in one carrier along with a canteen cup) and in some fashions have it secured to your person as to make sure it stays with you in a survival situation.

NATURAL WATER SOURCES- Many types of MAPLE and BIRCH trees can be tapped for their water (depends on time of year). The trees act as a natural water filter and produce a liquid (sap) that can be drank in a liquified form with little worry of contamination. Much like "THE WELL METHOD" where you dig 2 - 4 feet from a water source maybe more and get into the GROUND WATER the tree roots essentially do the same thing. The EARTH FILTER that gives you ground water is not guaranteed, to be safe you may still want to boil or distill your collected water for safety. You may also have coconuts or other vegetation available which provide electrolytes and a food source as well as water just be aware coconuts and other vegetation may have laxative like properties so if you have bowl issues or a sensitive digestive tract use caution.

WADING THROUGH THE REATIL WATERS- There are way too many tablets and water purifiers that are light weight and designed in some way for a survival situation to mention them all. Some purifiers only purify certain amounts of water, and some tablets can take up to 4 hours or more to be effective at possibly removing all harmful parasites and bacteria. Having something light weight to purify water on hand or some of the "best" tablets on hand wouldn't hurt. Each individual person will have to do their own research and draw their own conclusions on what would work best for themselves. I personally have made my own decisions and at best with my water purifier I would still boil my water, and with 1 box of my choice of 30 tablets drinking the recommended amount of water daily my choice in tablet would give me 7 1/2 days of drinking water. Please understand I tell you all this so you know that at some point you may have to source water if in a survival situation over an extended period of time. The chance of having on hand or sourcing materials to make / build a water purifier or construct a solar still are highly unlikely. The knowledge provided here is so you can prepare now and be prepared come what may. There are things here I did not mention and in doing research you can and may find a different way to purify water such as using bamboo to boil water in. It is my firm belief you can never have too much knowledge or be overprepared, however in all my research the best and safest method would be distillation or a rolling 15-minute boil without the proper tools and / or having something on hand vegetation, trees or a well or using the well method would more than likely be one's best option unless you can collect rainwater and with acid rain these days may not be the best option but may be better than your water source and may just give you a break from your purification process.

UNTILL NEXT TIME "STRUGGLE TO MAKE PUDDING".