Conversations about Drinking Stream Water
Author: John SeeleyPublished on: Jun 11, 1999
Information for those that need to drink stream water.
This is very important information for those of you who plan on running the Hardrock Ultra. I have presented this in 2 parts. I believe you will find this informative and interesting to read. Thanks go to Kevin Sayers at this web site.
Joel wrote:
"I am trying to get all my equipment ready for Hardrock now; I've never had to rely on stream water before to drink, but since it may take us four or five hours to get from one aid station to the next there, supplemental water will be a necessity.....I've bought one of those Oasis drinking bottle/water filter gizmos, and some Aqua Pure iodine- based purification tablets, and I don't know if I can/should rely on the Oasis and hold the tablets as backup or use both in combo or what....if you have a tried and true method for getting palatable and drinkable water up in the mountains from what is there, i.e, ground water and snow, while you are running or fast-packing, let us know..."
I have not used an Oasis bottle, but I have successfully used Aqua Pure iodine tablets to treat water at the Barkley Marathons. The water I treated and subsequently drank was from a spring and had some dirt in it. I waited about half an hour to drink it after treating it. It tasted like iodine, but I didn't get sick, and went on to finish Barkley (55 miles) that year (1988), thus becoming the first-ever official finisher at Barkley.
The various sections of Barkley between water-drop locations routinely take me between about 2.5 and 5 hours. I normally carry three 29-ounce bottles, and that is usually enough for up to five hours for me (assuming it's not too hot). The one time I used the iodine tablets was because there was no treated water available at one of the water-drop locations. So I wonder if you would really need to treat water at Hardrock; you might be able to carry three bottles and get safely between stations even up to five hours apart.
What do most Hardrock runners do?
Bryan Spellczech
"Supplemental water will be a necessity.....I've bought one of those Oasis drinking bottle/water filter gizmos, if you have a tried and true method for getting palatable and drinkable water up in the mountains from what is there, i.e, ground water and snow, while you are running or fast-packing, let us know..."
I have a tried-and-true method. It's called the Oasis water bottle ;-) Carry two, been very happy. Work like a charm. What else is there to know? I didn't get sick yet (well, besides wanting to run ultras all the time :-)).
I even talked one of my roommates into buying one for hunting/camping (they're light weight, take up only the room for the bottle [ie. don't need bottle *and* filter], and cost less to replace than a new filter for a pump). No complaints so far. A little track work, a little trail running...all in all a very nice day (70 and sunny).
Matt Mahoney
Joel wrote:
"I've bought one of those Oasis drinking bottle/water filter gizmos, and some Aqua Pure iodine- based purification tablets, and I don't know if I can/should rely on the Oasis and hold the tablets as backup or use both in combo or what."
It would probably be a good idea to carry the tablets just in case. The bottle of tablets is small. I've used them at Leadville and Barkley and when hiking in the Rockies, and I plan to use them at Laural Highlands this weekend. The directions say to add one tablet per quart or liter, or two if the water is dirty, wait 3 minutes, shake, let a little water leak out to wet the threads around the cap, and wait 10 more minutes. I usually put one tablet per 20 oz. bottle and assume that running with it shakes it up enough.
I drink from one bottle while waiting for the other one to dissolve. It adds a slight chlorine taste but you get used to it. You could probably take your chances and drink untreated water (which I've done sometimes). I think its less likely to have giardia if it's close to the source, like melting snow at high altitude, and besides, giardia won't kill you.
Dan Baglione
I bought the Oasis and, even after cutting the spout, decided it required more effort to draw water through the filter than I am willing to expend. The filter also reduces the amount of water in one bottle. While the sun is more intense, the temperatures are generally cooler at 11000' although some of those climbs in the sun can get warm. In 4 training runs and in 28 miles of the race in 1994, I had enough liquid to last between aid stations. I did tank up at aid stations. I have no problem with iodine tablets, especially the newer ones which are combined with something to remove or diminish the iodine taste.
Martin Hillyer
Ed wrote:
"Joel, I have not used an Oasis bottle, but I have successfully used Aqua Pure iodine tablets to treat water at the Barkley Marathons. The water I treated and subsequently drank was from a spring and had some dirt in it. I waited about half an hour to drink it after treating it. It tasted like iodine, but I didn't get sick, and went on to finish Barkley (55 miles) that year (1988), thus becoming the first-ever official finisher at Barkley."
The latest time I bought AquaPure at REI it came with a second bottle of pills which killed the iodine flavor (you still have to wait the time for the iodine to work). Worked perfectly!!
Brick Robbins#1
Here is a copy of a post about water filters I wrote for the PCT Mailing list, so it mentions some specific places, and backpacking. All the info should apply to the UltraRunner also. I've done a bunch of research on this stuff preparing a web page for the PCT Association. If you find anything wrong with the info posted here (I know there are lots of extremely qualified folks on this list) please let me know. If anyone want the "next installment" please e-mail me, as I don't want to clutter the list.
Here is a synopsis of the info: *A filter with a 1 micron pore size is all you need to clean the water. The iodine and such in the OASIS is overkill for water in the USA. *Iodine tabs like Potable Aqua will take SEVERAL HOURS to work if the water is cold -- much longer than you want to tote a full bottle around. Chlorine pills like Halzone WONT WORK at all.
Begin
There has been considerable discussion of late on this list about water filters, and for the hiker to make a good choice, he/she must know a fair amount about water quality along the trail, and potential hazards.
There are two types of hazards in water along the PCT: biological, and chemical.
CHEMICAL. This hazard comes mostly from human pollution, and is a bigger problem near civilization where you are more likely to be able to use a municipal water system. There are some notable exceptions, like Chimney Peak Campground, which has water contaminated by a heavy metal (uranium). Most filters will not remove ANY chemical contaminate. The exception are those that have a charcoal cartridge, which will remove some volatile chemicals. (The level of uranium at Chimney Peak won't bother you if you only drink it for a short time, but the Host at that campground drinks bottles water...Also the problem is heavy metal poisoning, not radiation!
BIOLOGICAL This hazard is divided into 3 types of "germs" -- cystic protozoans like Giardia, bacteria like E. Coli, and viruses like Polio and Hepatitis.
VIRUSES AND BACTERIA are small and difficult to filter out, but fortunately they are not a much of a problem in the surface water in the USA. There may be a low level of some bacteria in the water, but the normal immune system should handle them. Even in prepared foods, the FDA has established "acceptable" levels of coliform bacteria (read: fecal matter). People with impaired immune systems and the very old and very young may have problems, but they probably won't be out on the trail anyway.
Bacteria come as small as 0.2 microns, so you need a filter size at least 0.1 microns or smaller to filter them out. The smaller the pore size, the more difficult the pumping, and the quicker it clogs. Viruses cannot be filtered out, and require chemical treatment, such as that provided by iodine matrixes found in some filters. If you are worried about viruses, the two most common water borne are Polio and Hepatitis. There are vaccines for both.
CYSTS are the real problem for the PCT hiker, with the big villain being Giardia Lamblia and to a lesser extent, Cryptosporidium Parvum. These are intestinal parasites, that can only multiply inside a host. They enter the water from feces from an infected animal or person. As far as I can tell from my research, only omnivores such as humans, beavers, bears, marmots can be infected. Deer, cows and horses don't seem to carry this bug, so as unpleasant as a cow polluted spring is, you won't get Giardia from the cows. Cysts can't multiply in the water, so there has to be an infected animal or person upstream for there to be a hazard. Even though the powers that be warn you to treat the water, very few of the streams are infected. If you ask the back country rangers in Sequoia-Kings National Park if you should filter your water they will say "yes" loudly. If you ask them if they filter theirs, they will say "no" quietly.
When these germs leave the body, they encyst themselves (cover themselves with a tough coating) that makes them extremely difficult to kill chemically. The FDA has warned cities that use surface water that normal chlorination WILL NOT KILL GIARDIA. For the backpacker, this means that chemical purification may not work, depending on the type and concentration of the chemicals used. Iodine seems to be the best, but it may still take SEVERAL HOURS to kill the giardia if the water is cold. Chlorine tablets are even worse.
Fortunately, cysts are fairly large (5 microns) and are easy to filter out. A filter with a pore size of 2 microns or less will work fine. This means that a fairly cheap, easy pumping filter will protect you from giardia just as well as an expensive slow pumping filter.
STORAGE OF THE FILTER
I have seen folks who buy the heaviest and most expensive filter in the store, with charcoal, and iodine matrixes and 0.1 pore size (that would be OK to use in India) and then wrap the inlet hose along side the outlet hose and stuff the whole dripping pump into a soggy stuff sack.
They wonder later why the hi-tech filter didn't keep them from getting sick...
If you want to keep the pump effective, you need to take care not to contaminate the filter outlet hose with unfiltered water from the inlet side of the device. I haven't figured out an elegant way to do this yet. Any suggestions would be welcome.
For more info on water purity and treatment, I recommend the Oasis Water Filter/Bottle page. It is a product that is not suitable for overnight backpacks, so this is not a sales pitch. It does have descriptions of and links to several water purity-microorganism topics. It also has some neat pics of Giardia, and other bugs.
The UR.. is http://www.dimensional.com/~zakoasis
In the next installment, I will discuss the effects of and treatments for Giardia and my own person feelings about back country water.