PDA

View Full Version : Obsessive compulsive water safety question



toemaetoe
07-23-2015, 10:19
I use AquaMira (which I love) for water treatment. I use my cooking pot or submerge my water bag to get water, depending on the water source, which I then treat. I haven't been sick yet, but I wonder if I'm playing with unnecessary risks. How concerned should I be with untreated water around the nozzle of the water bag getting into my water tube? Am I contaminating my cooking pot with dirty water, or do you think it gets sterilized while heating? In short, should I have a designated "dirty water" cup and funnel for scooping the water into the bag? Thank you!

peakbagger
07-23-2015, 10:27
Left over from my Polar pure days, I always filled up my bottle, put on the cap loosely, turned the bottle over and squeezed the bottle until water leaked out the threads a bit, then tightened the cap. I generally made sure that if I did use a pot or cup on unpurified water that I subsequently made sure that boiled water made contact with either before I ate or drank out of it. My water bag is never used for anything other than treated water. I sectioned the AT over a 10 year period and never had any water related illnesses, others are far less careful and seem to slip by but others have gotten giardia.

RangerZ
07-23-2015, 10:55
+1 on all of the above. I have black duct tape and caps on two sawyer bags for dirty water and white on two others for treated. Only treated water in reservoir.

Another Kevin
07-23-2015, 11:21
Bacteria are the greatest risk in backcountry water in the US. (You're much more likely to catch Shigella than Giardia, in other words.)

Aqua Mira maintains a fairly high residual of ClO₂ for several hours, which is one reason that I like to use it at least every third or fourth batch, even when I'm using my filter. If I do get bacterial surface contamination going, I get a good chance to have any biofilm broken up by the oxidant exposure. With filtration, there's nothing protecting the water from recontamination.

My cooking pot gets sterilized every time I use it. Simply boiling water in it is enough to kill any of the common protozoa, bacteria or viruses. Boiling water is by far the most reliable method of treating it, but who has the fuel to boil it all the time or the time to wait for it to cool? (Exception: If I'm out in deep winter and need to melt my drinking water, I might as well boil it. But in those conditions I'm also carrying a Whisperlite and a litre of gasoline.) More aggressive sterilization in food applications is generally needed only for canning, where you're trying to knock out every last organism because they'll multiply in storage.

The poison is in the dose, even with microorganisms. A few drops of contaminated water are unlikely to sicken you. Drinking a litre of it might.

nsherry61
07-23-2015, 13:31
It is foolish to think that your water is (or needs to be) 100% sterile.

Water safety is a game of statistics, not absolutes. Even sterile conditions like biology labs or hospitals - conditions we cannot and do not need to come close to outdoors - are always going to have some small level of contamination in most situations. If you read the sides of your filter packaging or your chemical treatments, they normally say they remove or kill 99.99??% of whatever bad things you are trying to avoid.

What little contamination is left on threads or in your cooking pot, or dirty water bottle, is almost surely irrelevant to your safety, except in the most extreme conditions where either your immune system is compromised or the water is exceptionally highly contaminated.

That being said, you need to treat your water to the level that makes you happiest. To many of us, that is no treatment at all for most back-country water, and for other's you're not hurting anyone else by being obsessive about maximum sterilization of your personal water.

And remember, several sources suggest that most back-country illness comes from the friends you are hiking with, not the water you drink.
So, washing hands and being careful about general hygiene of your immediate community is more important the purifying your water.

toemaetoe
07-23-2015, 13:39
Okay, awesome. Thank you, everyone!

Another Kevin
07-23-2015, 17:23
So, washing hands and being careful about general hygiene of your immediate community is more important the purifying your water.

This. The most important protection you can bring against getting a stomach bug on the trail is soap.

Five Tango
07-23-2015, 19:50
I think I read somewhere once that people who drink bottled water,i.e.,the general public,should drink the whole bottle and not leave it half finished for hours and then come back to it because bacteria from your mouth has contaminated it as you drank from it.So I guess the best case scenario is the old chug-a-lug?

Dogwood
07-23-2015, 21:21
I use AquaMira (which I love) for water treatment. I use my cooking pot or submerge my water bag to get water, depending on the water source, which I then treat. I haven't been sick yet, but I wonder if I'm playing with unnecessary risks. How concerned should I be with untreated water around the nozzle of the water bag getting into my water tube? Am I contaminating my cooking pot with dirty water, or do you think it gets sterilized while heating? In short, should I have a designated "dirty water" cup and funnel for scooping the water into the bag? Thank you!

For the past 9 yrs hiking a minimum of 1500+ trail miles per yr spending an avg of 90+ nights per yr outdoors throughout the U.S. not confined to any geographical area I've also been using the Aqua Mira 2 part drops to purify water. It does fluctuate some depending on where I"m backpacking but I treat less than 20% of the time. I will sometimes purify by bringing water to a boil but that is not typical. I too will capture water with a Cascade Designs Platypus 2L Water Bottle w/ a screw top cap mostly and preferably at sites w/ running water like at small waterfall. Rather infrequently at very shallow water sites, like at desert seeps, I too will capture water with my SnowPeak Mini Solo Ti pot or even with a Optimus Ti foldable spork if need be. I will mostly capture water throughout the day with a 1 L bicycle like thin Al Sigg bottle with a threaded screw top ring cap, at the same preferable waterfall sources. This is the bottle I'm most concerned about holding water borne parasites simply because it gets used most often.

I tend to resupply at town stops as I long distance hike about every 5-7 days. I'm regularly cleaning, rinsing out, and sterilizing my cookware, Sigg bottle, and water reservoir with a small amount of unscented bleach or hydrogen peroxide, H2O2, while at these stops. I'll make sure to remove any visible gunk build up on threads. If spending an overnight in town I'll let both my cookware, Sigg, and Platy soak overnight submerged or completely filled with the sterilizing solution.

I have to mention I know I have an extremely healthy digestive system, excellent metabolism, maintain a vegetarian diet, and have made other lifestyle choices that I whole heartedly know, after careful and extensive research, factor into NEVER having contracted a water born parasite OR if I have the cysts I may have ingested do not gain a hold in my digestive system. I've been medically lab tested three times with all results coming back negative.

You're results may vary.

If you have any doubts just purify and keep your gear clean. It's not a big deal.

Dogwood
07-23-2015, 21:27
I think I read somewhere once that people who drink bottled water,i.e.,the general public,should drink the whole bottle and not leave it half finished for hours and then come back to it because bacteria from your mouth has contaminated it as you drank from it.So I guess the best case scenario is the old chug-a-lug?

Try it. Crack open a bottle, take a swig, cap it back up tightly, and leave it somewhere for a few wks. UGGGH!

Different kind of thing thou than the typical water borne parasites found in common outdoor environs. Bacteria, parasites, virus, etc

Colter
07-23-2015, 22:03
This. The most important protection you can bring against getting a stomach bug on the trail is soap.

To the best of my knowledge there has only been one study comparing water treatment to hand washing and and it showed a stronger correlation between untreated water and sickness vs unwashed hands and sickness.

Medical risks of wilderness hiking. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12681456)
Boulware DR1, Forgey WW, Martin WJ 2nd.

PURPOSE:

We sought to determine the extent to which injuries and illnesses limit long-distance or endurance outdoor recreational activities.
METHODS:

In a prospective surveillance study, 334 persons who hiked the Appalachian Trail for at least 7 days (mean [+/- SD] length of hike, 140 +/- 60 days) in 1997 were interviewed. At the end of their hike, subjects completed a questionnaire on injuries, illnesses, water purification methods, and hygiene practices.
RESULTS:

Of the 280 backpackers who responded (a combined 38,940 days of wilderness exposure), 69% (n = 192) achieved their goal. The most important reasons for ending a hike prematurely were injury, time limitation, and psychosocial reasons. The most common medical complaints were feet blisters (64%; n = 180), diarrhea (56%, n = 156), skin irritation (51%, n = 143), and acute joint pain (36%, n = 102). The incidence of vector-borne disease was 4% (n = 11); physician-diagnosed Lyme disease was the most common, and 24% of hikers (n = 68) reported tick bites. The risk of diarrhea was greater among those who frequently drank untreated water from streams or ponds (odds ratio [OR] = 7.7; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 2.7 to 23; P <0.0001), whereas practicing "good hygiene" (defined as routine cleaning of cooking utensils and cleaning hands after bowel movements) was associated with a decreased risk (OR = 0.46; 95% CI: 0.22 to 0.97; P =0.04).
CONCLUSION:

Diarrhea is the most common illness limiting long-distance hikers. Hikers should purify water routinely, avoiding using untreated surface water. The risk of gastrointestinal illness can also be reduced by maintaining personal hygiene practices and cleaning cookware.

Walkintom
07-23-2015, 22:12
Try it. Crack open a bottle, take a swig, cap it back up tightly, and leave it somewhere for a few wks. UGGGH!

Different kind of thing thou than the typical water borne parasites found in common outdoor environs. Bacteria, parasites, virus, etc

I don't cap it but I drink from the same water container for days and days without cleaning it with no issues.

I realized last week that I'd been drinking from my Camelbak chute bottle for over 6 months without washing it. Not too proud of that, but the cool part is it never did get nasty. I tend to empty it several times throughout the day so there's good turnover.

Cobble
07-24-2015, 00:13
I got Giardia frequently overseas and other stomach bugs. Bismuth tablets treat this very well in my experience if taken as soon as symtoms appear. Keep taking doses as advised on packaging until symptoms disapear. (Then a few more to be safe.) Note this only kills what is in your gut not your blood AND it destroys the good bacteria too.

Obviously, this is my experience and not a doctors advice, but I've had good success overseas with it. But my ~95% Not purifying of water never got me into trouble on the AT. (I iodined standing water though)

Berserker
07-24-2015, 12:11
This. The most important protection you can bring against getting a stomach bug on the trail is soap.
Or a small bottle of hand sanitizer.

Berserker
07-24-2015, 12:18
What little contamination is left on threads or in your cooking pot, or dirty water bottle, is almost surely irrelevant to your safety, except in the most extreme conditions where either your immune system is compromised or the water is exceptionally highly contaminated.
I agree with this. You're probably not going to run into a source that has a super high concentration of bacteria and or viruses on the AT unless you are gathering water from a super sketchy source (like a big river, stagnant pond, small puddle, etc.). I use a Steripen and don't even worry about that almost negligible few drops of water that doesn't get treated on the bottle threads. Just use common sense and get your water that you'll treat from a source that appears to be clean and clear, and your chances of having an issue are pretty remote.