Water filters and non-organic contaminates

Some of my favorite places to pack are in coal/oil country and the "Official" advise from the authorities is to not drink found water. We're talking reclaimed mining and active oil well. Apparently, the water risk is the presence of metals derived as a by-product of mining. None of the water filters I've researched address inorganics, but it seems that if I could determine a particle size for dissolved metals I could make a judgement call on the effectiveness of the filter.

So far, I have decided that the risk of contaminates is a lesser hazard than dehydration, but with the addition of my 6 year old to these excursions I am more concerned than in the past.

What have you done to deal with these issues? What are the risks taken by drinking this water with little more than chemical treatment? Any advice/thought at all is welcome.

Filters can trap some particulates -- sediment or metallic -- and filters with a carbon element can adsorb some chemicals. But even the very best hand held units can only do so much. That's why all filter/purifier manufacturers emphasize the need to find the best (or least worst) water source -- and to stay away from water located around cow pastures and mines.

Chemical treatments deal with neutralizing/killing organic baddies. They do absolutely nothing about removing sediments or contaminants or improving foul looking or foul tasting water.

Metallic and chemical contaminants can affect the health of everyone -- but esp. a growing kid. If I know that a water source is thus contaminated, I would NOT risk having my six year old drink from it -- just so I can carry less weight. For me anyway, I would either carry more water -- or find other places to hike. Anyway, my two cents.

Yeah, I know. I just want the care-free times I had to carry on with him. Maybe if I can develop that portable water treatment system with the settling basin, floculation tank, multistage filtering, post-clorination and UV disinfection we can just sip from the streams through a straw. Of course, if I could do that I'd be a hero in developing third-world areas.

After I posted this, I did more digging on the forum and found a few posts that addressed this in passing, usually with a reference to distillation. I considered that path, but figured the extra fuel weight would be the same as carrying the extra tap water in the first place, plus time and effort. Although, in the area I go, a still isn't out of place!

It's been 20 years or so since I got really into backpacking without the assistance of the US miltary - this is more fun, let me tell you! - so I was hopeful that there had been some advancement in the field or a product I hadn't stumbled across yet. Judging from the materials and products I've come across lately as compared to what I had in the '80's I am suprised that the outfitters don't yet have setups to teleport you to the best trailheads in the solar system.

So, what might be a particulate size for disolved metal? Any scientist-types out there? I'd be curious to see if a .1 or .2um filter would get it.

I'm from Cincinnati Ohio, what area are you hiking?

There are plenty of areas to hike/backpack that are 4 hours or less. Red River Gorge is a good place as long as your child stays with you and doesent venture off because some of the trails have drop off cliffs. I've drank filtered water from the Red River, and it's feeder creeks, and have yet to have any ill effects.


Tom

Spent the weekend in Wildcat Hollow, a trail on the Wayne National Forest, Athens District. About 2 years ago, I went back to the RR Gorge for the first time in a while and was disappointed by the number of people I ran across during a hike on Rough Trail. In contrast, there was a family with campers at the Wildcat trailhead, but no one else on the trail. I much prefered that solitude.

I'm considering Zaleski State Forest as well, but they only allow camping at specific sites and I'm sure they are well populated - toilets and water points draw people like flies.

What are your favorite haunts?

One of these might do the trick, if you don't mind carrying 2.5 pounds.

http://products.katadyn.com/brands-and-products/produkte/Survivor_34/Katadyn_Survivor_06_49.html

Hazy memories from chemistry--metals contamination would be ionic--in solution--so you're working on the molecular level and physical filtration won't do.

Maybe another approach is to do some research and determine what backcountry water sources in the region aren't subject to contamination. It seems likely the state tests waters and some of that data must be available to the public.

Good luck!

2.5 lbs is still better than 8lbs/gal water, but I'm not confident this fits the bill. I don't believe that dissolved minerals would be bound in any way to the water molecule anymore than the sugar in your tea is (non subject-matter expert alert). A floculant should be able to settle particulates out of the water, but I have yet to find those stocked with the chlorine tabs!

You're right of course that I should find a place with better water, but it seems unlikely that any agency will expose themselves to liability by saying "Sure, drink the water! It's fine!" and then be held responsible for every case of diareah. Even if the water is fine, the official line will be to stay away.

Guess I'll just keep humping it in. Some risks aren't worth taking.

We had a lot of abandoned WWII installations in the woods near where I grew up, and the situation was similar: there were some very nasty contaminants in the ground, leaving the water undrinkable in those areas. Filters, purifiers, chemical tablets, pens, etc. *do not* make water such as this safe to drink, not as far as I've learned. There might be a lot more than dissolved metals in the water: PCBs, oil tank seepage, agent orange... we just didn't know. As a kid I remember seeing puddles near the woods that had rainbow colors on top, and I had no idea what made them.

To safely remove the contaminants from the ground, my hometown hired an engineering firm for damage assessment and forced the Army to clean up their mess about half a century too late. To this day, we don't know how many cancer cases were caused directy from their groundwater contamination.

My only recommendation, sadly, is to carry in all of your water... it's not worth the risk...

Consulted with a handy chemist, who had a few points:

To hold a lot of metals the water would be acidic, and with neutralization and aeration the metals, beginning with the iron, would precipitate into solids and drop out of the water column.

He noted that RO alone would get quite a bit of metals, but probably not to drinking water (ppb) levels.

So, I'll propose the Arm & Hammer + cocktail shaker pretreatment system.

I doubt that any of the filters we use would get found water to the EPA's drinking water levels! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Maybe I could look up some of the water quality chemists I used to work with. By now I've decided not to risk the water in the area, but the discussion has me interested in finding a solution (no pun intended, but happily pointed out!) that could be used if really needed. I still can't believe that there isn't already something out there that would do this, but maybe it just isn't a simple process that can effectively be miniturized.

Anyone know a chemist with some free time?

Reverse osmosis is what is used generally for field treatment of water on a large scale to remove chemicals, solids and the like. I think its the only effective way to remove these types of contaminates but don't quote me on that been a while since I took chemistry class in high school. Used by both the Canadian and American militaries for support of troops in combat zones and humanitarian efforts. Most of the systems they use though are on flat bed trucks and are huge. Might be smaller models somewhere out there. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />



Dimitri

There is a small portable RO unit for liferafts/boats sold that is manually pumped by PUR Recovery last time I had one on one of my boats. It's pretty heavy compared to what we backpackers normally carry though and pricey too. floculating then filtering through a carbon based core filter should remove most metals, save for mercury which is very hard to remove. I'd opt to carry in the water as if you were desert hiking. This would probably require you to get another pack to carry the weight more comfortably, i suggest ULA Catalyst <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

What, no hip belt? C'mon....

That's led me back to what RickD suggested - on sale now for only $895.00!! What a bargain!

Guess I'll just save up a few more old milk jugs to stash in my pack. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />