Household Bleach

[katerbrown]

On previous excursions I have merely used a few drops of household bleach to treat my water. (Figured safe as recommended in emergency preparedness literature AND close to how cities treat their water) However next year I'm planning a thru hike. Do you think it's safe to use for 6 months? I can't figure why so many hikers use Aqua Mira or other product if bleach is safe because its so readily accessible and cheap. Any information or thoughts would be appreciated.

[birchy]

Long term use of many treatment chemicals, can adverse physical ramifications. There are many websites that discuss this. Personally, I would use a filter or a Steri-pen, and use bleach only as a backup.

[lush242000]

I would guess that people like aqua mira because it does not have the same strong chlorine smell as household bleach.

[Spokes]

AquaMira is not chlorine! It's chlorine dioxide.

[Rain Man]

Any information or thoughts would be appreciated.

Are you willing to wait the HOURS it takes any drops to fully disinfect your water?

Rain Man

.

[solobip]

Hope this helps. Re: Chlorine bleach as water purification: http://www.newjerusalem.com/PureWater.htm

[Snowleopard]

Chlorine bleach is not a very good water treatment in the wild. How well it works depends on temperature, pH, concentration and other factors that are carefully controlled in city water systems but impossible to control on the trail. It's ineffective against giardia and cryptosporidium and not very effective against bacteria. Filters, aquamira (chlorine dioxide), iodine, and steripens are all much safer. Boiling is probably the most effective water treatment for biological hazards, but not very convenient.

Some people use bleach in combination with filters because most filters don't remove viruses and bleach is reasonably effective against viruses.

solobip, that newjerusalem link has incorrect statements and I wouldn't really trust it.

[ScottP]

in this thread: clueless people.

there are websites that discuss everything. The internet lets people pretend to be experts on anything.

The red cross recommends bleach for emergency water treatment. Bleach has a short shelf life, so use something relatively new. IIRC, bleach is one of the few chemical treatments that zaps pretty much everything, although if you're very concerned you will want to double check me on that.

http://www.redcross.org/portal/site/en/menuitem.d229a5f06620c6052b1ecfbf43181aa0/?vgnextoid=b60461150e8ae110VgnVCM10000089f0870aRCR D
(http://www.redcross.org/portal/site/en/menuitem.d229a5f06620c6052b1ecfbf43181aa0/?vgnextoid=b60461150e8ae110VgnVCM10000089f0870aRCR D)
any chemical treatment method is going to take longer to be effective at lower temperatures. That's basic chemistry. You're also going to have a much lower risk of there being a contaminant in water at lower temperatures.

Aqua mira does not effectively kill giardia. Read the label. It's for 'enhancing the flavor of drinking [read: already potable] water and killing odor-causing bacteria' or some such nonsense. The stuff isn't even legal to sell in California because it's a misleading product.




I know of no studies of the long term effects of chemically treating your water.

You can treat with iodine and add in tablets that both deactivate the iodine and make it inert (unable to react with anything).

someone posted a giant, thorough military research project on water treatment methods. It covers the effectiveness of most typical water treatment methods against varieties of biological contaminants.

In the end it is personal preference--there's a give and take to each choice, but generally treating water on the AT is a waste of time. It's nice to have something simple like bleach when you're thirsty and crossing a stream that runs through a cow pasture.

I treat my water almost never, and have only gotten ill once in over 10,000 miles of hiking. I'd rather take 3 days of flagyll every few years than drink chemicals 5 times a day every day.

[katerbrown]

Thanks to all posters, a variety of thought is welcome! Solobip the link you posted mirrors info on which I based my earlier bleach using decision. But when I ran into so many hikers on the Trail last spring who relied so heavily on aqua mira I started to wonder if I was crazy with my small vial of bleach. So I'm trying to do more research. I do believe it only takes 30 minutes in most circumstances to kill all the baddies and I don't mind the taste. It's just so much of the info posted on treating water with bleach comes from framework 'how to treat water in emergency situations' that long term use is not mentioned. But as I was reading these posts I suddenly (why did it take me so long?) remembered: I used to have a well which I was instructed to treat regularly with household bleach and I lived there and drank tap water for a few years having faithfully bleached as directed....so maybe I'm ok with bleach after all.

[Odd Man Out]

AquaMira is not chlorine! It's chlorine dioxide.

bleach is not chlorine either. It is a solution of sodium hypochlorite (NaClO)

[Moose2001]

This discussion comes up all the time. Lots of opinions. Here's a great page by the Center for Disease Control. No politics....just the facts. I believe there's just too much confusion between bacteria and protozoa.

http://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/drinking/travel/backcountry_water_treatment.html

Here's a quick snapshot of the important parts of the webpage.

•Protozoa - Cryptosporidium
◦Potential health effects from ingestion of water contaminated with Cryptosporidium are:
■Gastrointestinal illness (for example, diarrhea, vomiting, cramps).
◦Sources of Cryptosporidium in drinking water are:
■Human and animal fecal waste.
◦Methods that may remove some or all of Cryptosporidium from drinking water are:
■Boiling (Rolling boil for 1 minute) has a very high effectiveness in killing Cryptosporidium;
■Filtration has a high effectiveness in removing Cryptosporidium when using an absolute less than or equal to 1 micron filter (NSF Standard 53 or 58 rated "cyst reduction / removal" filter);
■Disinfection with iodine or chlorine is not effective in killing Cryptosporidium;
■Disinfection with chlorine dioxide has a low to moderate effectiveness in killing Cryptosporidium;
■Combination filtration and disinfection has a very high effectiveness in removing and killing Cryptosporidium when used with chlorine dioxide and an absolute less than or equal to 1 micron filter (NSF Standard 53 or 58 rated "cyst reduction / removal" filter).

•Protozoa - Giardia intestinalis (also known as Giardia lamblia)
◦Potential health effects from ingestion of water contaminated with Giardia are:
■Gastrointestinal illness (for example, diarrhea, vomiting, cramps).
◦Sources of Giardia in drinking water are:
■Human and animal fecal waste.
◦Methods that may remove some or all of Giardia from drinking water are:
■Boiling (Rolling boil for 1 minute) has a very high effectiveness in killing Giardia;
■Filtration has a high effectiveness in removing Giardia when using an absolute less than or equal to 1 micron filter (NSF Standard 53 or 58 rated "cyst reduction / removal" filter);
■Disinfection with iodine or chlorine has a low to moderate effectiveness in killing Giardia;
■Disinfection with chlorine dioxide has a high effectiveness in killing Giardia;
■Combination filtration and disinfection has a very high effectiveness in removing and killing Giardia when used with chlorine dioxide and an absolute less than or equal to 1 micron filter (NSF Standard 53 or 58 rated "cyst reduction / removal" filter).

•Bacteria - (for example, Campylobacter, Salmonella, Shigella, E. coli)
◦Potential health effects from ingestion of water contaminated with bacteria are:
■Gastrointestinal illness (for example, diarrhea, vomiting, cramps).
◦Sources of bacteria in drinking water are:
■Human and animal fecal waste.
◦Methods that may remove some or all of bacteria from drinking water are:
■Boiling (Rolling boil for 1 minute) has a very high effectiveness in killing bacteria;
■Filtration has a moderate effectiveness in removing bacteria when using an absolute less than or equal to 0.3 micron filter;
■Disinfection with iodine or chlorine has a high effectiveness in killing bacteria;
■Disinfection with chlorine dioxide has a high effectiveness in killing bacteria;
■Combination filtration and disinfection has a very high effectiveness in removing and killing bacteria when used with iodine, chlorine, or chlorine dioxide and an absolute less than or equal to 0.3 micron filter (NSF Standard 53 or 58 rated "cyst reduction / removal" filter).

•Viruses - (for example, enterovirus, hepatitis A, norovirus, rotavirus)
◦Potential health effects from ingestion of water contaminated with viruses are:
■Gastrointestinal illness (for example, diarrhea, vomiting, cramps), hepatitis, meningitis.
◦Sources of viruses in drinking water are:
■Human and animal fecal waste.
◦Methods that may remove some or all of viruses from drinking water are:
■Boiling (Rolling boil for 1 minute minimum) has a very high effectiveness in killing viruses;
■Filtration is not effective in removing viruses;
■Disinfection with iodine or chlorine has a high effectiveness in killing viruses;
■Disinfection with chlorine dioxide has a high effectiveness in killing viruses;
■Disinfection has a high effectiveness in killing viruses when used with iodine, chlorine, or chlorine dioxide.

[fiddlehead]

in this thread: clueless people.

there are websites that discuss everything. The internet lets people pretend to be experts on anything.

The red cross recommends bleach for emergency water treatment. Bleach has a short shelf life, so use something relatively new. IIRC, bleach is one of the few chemical treatments that zaps pretty much everything, although if you're very concerned you will want to double check me on that.

http://www.redcross.org/portal/site/en/menuitem.d229a5f06620c6052b1ecfbf43181aa0/?vgnextoid=b60461150e8ae110VgnVCM10000089f0870aRCR D
(http://www.redcross.org/portal/site/en/menuitem.d229a5f06620c6052b1ecfbf43181aa0/?vgnextoid=b60461150e8ae110VgnVCM10000089f0870aRCR D)
any chemical treatment method is going to take longer to be effective at lower temperatures. That's basic chemistry. You're also going to have a much lower risk of there being a contaminant in water at lower temperatures.

Aqua mira does not effectively kill giardia. Read the label. It's for 'enhancing the flavor of drinking [read: already potable] water and killing odor-causing bacteria' or some such nonsense. The stuff isn't even legal to sell in California because it's a misleading product.




I know of no studies of the long term effects of chemically treating your water.

You can treat with iodine and add in tablets that both deactivate the iodine and make it inert (unable to react with anything).

someone posted a giant, thorough military research project on water treatment methods. It covers the effectiveness of most typical water treatment methods against varieties of biological contaminants.

In the end it is personal preference--there's a give and take to each choice, but generally treating water on the AT is a waste of time. It's nice to have something simple like bleach when you're thirsty and crossing a stream that runs through a cow pasture.

I treat my water almost never, and have only gotten ill once in over 10,000 miles of hiking. I'd rather take 3 days of flagyll every few years than drink chemicals 5 times a day every day.

Correct answer^
(except for the first line)
I don't believe all replies are clueless.
But I found out over 20 years ago that simple household bleach works (for me.)
I don't use it often as I look for the smaller seeps and piped sources coming out of the ground.
But, whenever I do need to treat water, I haven't gotten sick from using bleach.

By the way, there are SO MANY threads on this subject already here on whiteblaze.

[Mr. Clean]

Please be aware that if you are treating clear water, you should be fine. The problem comes when the water you are treating is colored a bit like tea, usually from leaves or moss. This humic content when combined with bleach causes cancer causing compounds known as haloacetic acids and trihalomethanes. A little of this shouldn't be a big deal, but if you do this for 5 months, I'd be a little bit worried for your health.
Other water treatment methods don't do this.

[solobip]

@ Snowleopard: Thanks, I don't know of anything I can trust on the net anyway, but when this question came up, of course I Googled it and "Hey, Now I Know Sumthing." The only real learning I seem to get is from mistakes, and I can rely on those and remember em too. Thanks for the heads up on that link and as always I learn more than I throw here.

[solobip]

Katerbrown, I thought the bleach site was right on, but there are some really smart folks here, I really only posted to show it did not take hours to treat with bleach. I filter, but used bleach in my younger days and believe now that most illness is from unsanitary food prep and such as that anyway, and I have had some pretty rank water in my day both on and off the farm.

[Snowleopard]

... someone posted a giant, thorough military research project on water treatment methods. It covers the effectiveness of most typical water treatment methods against varieties of biological contaminants. ...

This was posted on WB. If you can find it it's probably the best available info in conditions similar to hiking. Sadly, it didn't find the steripen very effective (I had just bought one before reading this).

scottP's redcross link advises BOILING and treating with bleach after it cools.

Moose's cdc info matches the best info I've read.

Nobody really knows how many water sources on the trail are contaminated. Nobody has done the testing. It even varies with time -- Hurricane Irene dumped raw sewage, oil, gasoline and probably agricultural chemicals into one of the few streams I would normally drink from without treating.

[Panzer1]

the only reason bleach is recomended in emergency prepareness litature is because they expect every house to have bleach not because it is the best method of treating water.

What good would it be if they recommended using filters. Only hikers would have filters.

Panzer

[ScottP]

IIRC crypto isnt' a significant risk in backcountry water. It's more of a problem with poor quality municipal water.

[Snowleopard]

IIRC crypto isnt' a significant risk in backcountry water. It's more of a problem with poor quality municipal water.
Yes and no: Worcester, MA, had crypto in its municipal water; I think they switched from chorination to chlorine dioxide to eliminate it. However, the Worcester reservoirs are located in an area that's not very different from some of the lower elevation areas of the AT in NY and southern New England. I'd use this example as a reason to treat water on the trail for protozoa. The same arguments apply to giardia, which has been present in poor municipal supplies that draw their water from reservoirs situated similarly to Worcester's.

Higher elevation areas on the AT in northern New England might (or might not) have crypto or giardia, but the source might be different. All it takes is one infected hiker or one infected animal at a higher elevation than your water to contaminate it. I really wish someone would do extensive testing of water along the AT for protozoa, coliform bacteria and harmful viruses.