Does anyone know whether acid rain is a factor when harvesting rainwater near an industrial area such as Albany, NY? Can the water purification techniques discussed for rainwater remove chemical contaminants? I’m no expert on acid rain, but I know there’s a lot of nasty stuff going up that must come down . . .
Peej 7–14
Most gardening books will tell you how to treat soils and water to adjust the acidity. I think they call it the P.H. level. Stores that supply horticultural stuff always sell little P.H. testing kits. They are very cheap. I think that they work on the same principle as litmus paper. (school chemistry)
If this is for survival purposes then you would probably need to treat the water for bateria and viruses before you adjusted the P.H. level. You can buy little treatment tablets from most camping stores. These are cheap, easy to use and easy to store. They definitely kill bacteria. I think they kill viruses too but that’s not much of a guarantee. The other method involves using a few drops of PLAIN bleach. The method is explained somewhere on this site I think.
You can drink urine as a short term measure and people in the dessert have been known to fight over it. I believe it is useful for some skin ailments and it is commonly drunk in India. The BDSM community seem to be taking to it lately but personally I’d go for the acid rain. We already drink and eat highly acidic products and don’t seem to come to any harm. Suggest Grace would be a possible source of advice on that. Ordinary antacid tablets might work but if I recall correctly acid rain is sulpuric acid whilst digestive acids are hydrochloric.
None of this will be of any help if your rainwater is contaminated by dioxins or other harmful chemicals.
I read a strange yarn about 10 years ago about a woman traveling with a group of aboriginese in Australia. (She claimed it was true) There was mention of miraculous instant cures of fractured bones, and also the singular lack of need for what we consider enough water for survival. Does anyone know of such wonders?
Bristlecone: ewwwwwwwwwwwww! Thanks for motivating me to store extra tap water before an emergency. However, I remain curious . . . are people who plan to collect rainwater concerned about industrial contaminants that may be in the air?
Peej 14–08
It’s ok, theres no sugar! Just make sure that you take it from mid-flow.
There is nothing you can dream of that somebody somewhere isn’t doing.
Ref: the contaminants. I should stress that this is not my field. A purely person opinion is that most dangerous contaminants require constant ingestion over a prolonged period of many years before they start to do damage. The reason for this is somewhat obtuse and has more to do with potential law suits than any duty of care to the environment or its inhabitants.
My real worry is the airborne virus. This virus absolutely loves water. I don’t yet know just how airborne it can get but if can remain in the atmosphere rather than just in water droplets then its virtually game set and match.
The current position is that N95/FFP2 masks will protect you from water droplet transmission. People in close contact are advised that on N100/FFP3 masks will stop the pure virus. I read this to mean that the virus itself can be airborne. If it like water and it gets into the atmosphere you may not care about the acid in the rain.
My next question would be the expected rate of ultra-violet degradation of any atmospheric virus in raindrops or air. If I lived in the States I might be tempted to seek out a dry, warm and very sunny area, even if it had no water at all. We don’t have any desserts in Europe so I’m goosed anyway!
Also consider where you are harvesting rainwater from - if it comes off your roof, it likely will have bird droppings in it, possibly contaminated with virus.
Anonymous 15–52
There isn’t any real problem with the contaminated water in a tank. It’s easy to defend against with chemicals, bleach or moderate heat. This virus detests heat.
I was thinking about the air. I can’t think of any practical way to get in and out of a sealed living space if the air itself is contaminated. I could do it but it would be expensive and not very practical. Air washing or Air Toasting would be fine for the breathable air but how do you get in and out. Not easily.
Most viruses die eventually under the action of ultra-violet light but can’t set this to a time scale. Unless I’ve missed something this is a far tougher not to crack than food or water. Hence the phrase “game set and match”.
Bristlecone:
I’d say “URINE” big trouble . . . (LOL!)
I guess I’ll just keep my fingers crossed that the potential for harm due to using acid-rainwater for a few months isn’t as bad as catching bird flu.
Regarding the airborn issue: I believe that if the virus becomes truly airborn as opposed to traveling in human respiratory spray, full-face respirators with oxygen tanks are the only protection that would work. The N95 masks filter larger particles out of the air, so if the particles are air-sized or smaller they will get into your lungs. Depending on how long the virus lives in the air, we could all be in big trouble. We can’t wear oxygen tanks 24/7 and wouldn’t be able to seal ourselves inside our homes without suffocating. Or, as you say a very sophisticated air replacement or sanitizing system or big plastic bubble. Are the experts warning of this now?
I think the rain has pollutants, but so does your tap water; they don’t test for all the things human now put down the drain and back into Nature. [Odd findings include hormones from Rx medicines, caffeine, anti-depressants, antibiotics, triclosan from anti-bacterial soaps + sunlight= dioxin, ect.]
Would a rough filtering of your collected water, treating it the SODIS sunlight/uv way, or, by adding chlorine, and then serving your drinking water in one of those filter-pitchers they sell for tap water be over-doing it?
Airborne deadly pandemic; I guess we’re all at the “mercy” of our individual genes, and health, and situation.
[This says most acid rain water is safe to drink http://www.answerbag.com/c_view.php/2715 ]
Bird droppings on the roof - that about maximizes the gross factor for me. Maybe we could distill the rainwater? How difficult/expensive would it be to make a still?
We have bottled water delivered. The moment they stop delivering (quarantine or too many drivers out sick) I’ll fill all the empty bottles with tap water. Hopefully the city water system will hold out for us, there’s no other water supply except the rain, but we’re pretty dry in the winter.
M. Fox -
Many years ago we bought a tabletop distiller from Sears. I have no idea if they still sell them. The only thing you need to be aware of is that it consumes a large amount of power (about 1000 watts) and takes about 6–8 hours to distill about a gallon of water.
The power once consumed is yielded back into the room as heat. Thus, you end up with running a device which consumes as much power as, and heats up a room just like, a space heater.
Thus, if you pay $0.15 per kilowatt hour, it will cost you about $1.00 in electricity to run off a gallon of water. This assumes that you have electricity available. If you are running on your own generator, the investment in gasoline will become almost staggering - (assuming you are running other equipment at the same time to offset the operating overhead of the generator itself) you would need 1–2 gallons of gas to create the 1 gallon of distilled water.
So yes, you can distill water at home. The equipment is (at least used to be) reasonably cheap (approx $100), and I think in the situation you are thinking about, totally out of the question. Better off to use a solar pasteurizer.
I read somewhere about a very simple method for distilling water, using a towel over a pot of boiling water. When the towel is saturated with steam, squeeze it into a container and repeat. Does anyone remember seeing this info?
Lorelle 8:49 — I saw that info either on the Flu Wiki or in following a link from the Wiki. It’s an old survival expedient — When I was in taking field survival in the army 25 years ago they taught us that one.
Lorelle - Happy New Year. You might probably want to try that one out before planning on using it. It would certainly be a very long and tedious process. And it would burn more energy than even the tabletop still that I described above.
Anything which causes the vaporization of water and the recondensation and recapture of it can be used to generate drinking water. One survival method I was taught many years ago was to dig a hole in the sun, place a dish at the bottom and then spread platic sheeting across the top, with a stone to weight it down in the middle. Water will evaporate from the ground in the hole due to sunlight, recondense on the plastic sheeting, run down the inside toward the low point created by the weight of the stone and then drip into the dish.
Again, for those of us out in the country, that might be something to do, but I would hate like hell to have to use this method to keep my family alive. (I would if I had to though).
Bottom line. Many methods are available, but how many of them are the ones you really would WANT to use given all the rest of the malarky predicted to be goin on if and When.
Eccles,
Two questions. First, what is a solar pasteurizer? (Being lazy here.) And second, how do you dig a hole in the sun? ; )
Scaredy Cat -
Well, the short answer is that due to my advancing years and poor short term memory, I merely substitutued the word SUN for the word GROUND. You dig a hole in the GROUND. Digging a hole in the sun, while possibly fun would be useless for this purpose.
As for a solar pasteurizer, it is essentially a largish, flattish black water bottle, that, when left out in the sun makes water hot enough to kill the garden variety critters that live in water. It does not usually get hot enough to boil the water, depending instead on running a fairly high temperature for an extended period. They usually come with a gizmo that contains a wax such that if the wax gets hot enough to melt and flow down to the other end of the gizmo, then the water got hot enough to be considered pasteurized.
In retrospect, that would do nothing to reduce or eliminate the impurities that distillation would.
Eccles and Scaredy Cat: LOL!!!!!
I think I answered my own question: the health risks of acid rain (respiratory problems are a major risk) are an indirect consequence of the existing contaminants in a specific ecosystem. If you live in the U.S. the Environmental Protection Agency has several databases that tell you the specific contaminants in your community’s groundwater, drinking water, air—everywhere—and the sources by zip code or address:
http://oaspub.epa.gov/webimore/aboutepa.ebt4?search=22
rainwater is vulnerable to the same types of biological and man-made contaminants that affect the air and ground in a specific geographic area. Public drinking water is affected by these contaminants but it goes through a complex system of filters designed to remove the specific contaminants that water tests reveal. Some of the filters include sand, chemicals, ionization, and the natural environment’s filtering process. Rain is a natural filtering process but its not enough to do the job anymore. The water then is sanitized to remove bacteria and other biological nasties.
Soooooooo, I think the best thing to do is to use the databases and base your filtering system on the specific contaminants in your area. I got the impression that there is no single method that removes everything.
Here’s the URL for fact sheets that explain the filtering processes published by the U.S. National Environmental Services Center, Drinking Water Clearinghouse (its associated with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency).
http://www.nesc.wvu.edu/ndwc/ndwc_tb_available.htm
and the EPA http://www.epa.gov/safewater/dwh/treat.html
If I have time I want to go back to these sources and see if they have any recommendations for individual (personal) rainwater harvesting.
Solar water disinfection: http://www.sodis.ch/Text2002/T-Howdoesitwork.htm
(Peej, have you asked your local Water Dept. what their plan is to keep the electricity, and water treatment and distribution going?)
hi crfullmoon,
Here’s another document that I found helpful about both UV and solar disinfection methods. It recommends both methods and also has a chart that shows the advantages and disadvantages.
http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/wsh0207/en/index4.html
My original question was more about pollution from industrial waste in the air contaminating our rainwater, not disinfection per se, though that’s so important, too.
I haven’t asked my local Water Dept. but I need to put it on my to-do list. Thanks.
Eccles,
I don’t know about advancing years, but I sure as heck don’t think there’s anything wrong with your mind.
Scaredy Cat - Thank you! What I originally meant to say was to dig a hole somewhere it was in full sun. I just said things a bit shorter than was otherwise understandable. Still, digging a hole in the sun might be quite the challenge for someone to pull off.
It was a good laugh, something we all need from time to time. I got a Britta filter that goes on the faucet, and was wondering how I might get it to work without the faucet. More crazy ideas. Could I force water through it from a hose?
Simple distillation method for campfire or stove top use. One large pot with a lid one small pot with holes drilled on either end of lip. enough wire to suspend smaller pot from the larger pot’s lid Put the contaminated or salt water in the big pot. attach wire to smaller pot and run wire over the lid and around lid handle so little pot is hanging about one 3/4 of an inch from the lid underside. Put the lid on the big pot and boil the water. after 20 or so minutes remove lid carefully. The water in the little pot is ok to drink.
If worried only about the high pH (acidity level) of water, baking soda can be added to bring the pH to a more neutral (7.0 on a scale of 1–14) level. It’s used for that purpose in swimming pools all the time. The big packages of Arm & Hammer baking soda usually tell how much baking soda to add to adjust ph.
Drinking acid rain (as long as it is not so obviously severe that you can taste or smell sulfurous residues) does not pose a threat to your health. Acid in itself is not harmful at all, for the acid level in your stomach is at least 5000 times higher than the most acid rain. The rainwater should not be contaminated with cancer inducing industrial wastes that rained down. You can filter them out with an active carbon filter. If you want to be sure that your rain water harvest is not biologically contaminated, you can treat it with plain household bleach. You will have to know how much rain you harvest in lets say a week. You need a cistern gauge for that, that tells you how much water there is in your water tank. depth gauge for water tanks sells good ones. The dilution factor of the house hold bleach should be 1:1000 for bad water that smells a bit like wet soil and 1:10000 for clean water that is stored over a longer period of time. If it tasted like pool water, you can filter it again over the same active carbon filter mentioned before. Virtually all rainwater can be made drinkable in this manner.
Chemistry teacher.
What’s the big problem about industrial waste, pollutants in the atmosphere being washed down by rain?
A) If the air is THAT polluted, then the pandemic hasn’t started or only just, all chemical plants and refineries, etc are going full blast and you are likely to have usual community supply.
B) When absence of workers/supply materials/transport shuts down the pollution generating plants, wait a few days, let the next rain wash off your roof and then collect.
Urge everyone read Chemistry Teacher, just above. Cheers!!
Nikolai---Sydney – at 19:27
DARN IT!
:) *I* was going to say the SAME thing!
“How could there be acid rain if the factories are shut down due to the flu?”
Though, I am expecting a reply like, “there are robots…”
I’ll take some acid in my water if it’s that bad… typical drinking water from wells is often all over the pH map… so not like people can’t survive for some time like that. :)
Drinking acid rain (as long as it is not so obviously severe that you can taste or smell sulfurous residues) does not pose a threat to your health. Acid in itself is not harmful at all, for the acid level in your stomach is at least 5000 times higher than the most acid rain. The rainwater should not be contaminated with cancer inducing industrial wastes that rained down. You can filter them out with an active carbon filter. If you want to be sure that your rain water harvest is not biologically contaminated, you can treat it with plain household bleach. You will have to know how much rain you harvest in lets say a week. You need a cistern gauge for that, that tells you how much water there is in your water tank. www.cisterngauges.com sells good ones. The dilution factor of the house hold bleach should be 1:1000 for bad water that smells a bit like wet soil and 1:10000 for clean water that is stored over a longer period of time. If it tasted like pool water, you can filter it again over the same active carbon filter mentioned before. Virtually all rainwater can be made drinkable in this manner.
Chemistry teacher.
You can buy a Brita pitcher with a filter just like the one that goes on your faucet. The filter lasts about two months with “regular” use. This is my plan if we get down to drinking rainwater caught on a tarp.
For those of us who have a pool, the water is undrinkable due to chemical build up in the water. To get around this, I plan on building my own solar still using very simple materials laying around the house. It is basically glass, 2 x 4, plywood. Just make sure that all parts, glue, paint are non-toxic. Here is a design for a http://www.stillcooker.com/Solar%20still.html?. The brakish pool water is placed in the main part in black containers so that heat is absorbed. I will use disposable roasting pans lined with black plastic trash bags so the black absorbs the heat and evaporates the water. The water collects on the glass, drips to the front, and is collected in the front compartment. I will line the front compartment with saran wrap (the thicker the better) or any other food grade plastic I can find and have it come through the side so I can collect it in a bucket next to the system.
BTW, the bigger the glass and unit, the more water can be distilled. Bigger is better.
I wonder if we will know whether there’s birdpoop/virus on the tarp or should we assume there is, and treat it with chlorine?
Add Brita fliters to my shopping list, along with purification tablets for many of the nearby ponds and streams.
Question - if we catch ran water off the roof (fiberglass shingles), I know it probably isn’t good to drink buyt could we water the garden with it?
Also - if you plan on using large garbage cans to collect downspout water, test the can first. one of our regular big cans just sprung a leak and we had nasty sticky juice all over the garage floor.
test
Along the lines LauraB mentioned, many of the plastic buckets out there do not do well in the elements. I left a 3 gallon bucket out on the stoop for about 4 months last summer. After I brought it in, I used it as a bucket, only to find it leaking. I managed to get most of it emptied before it essentially shattered in my hands. This, I assume< was from a combination of temperature and UV exposure.
You’ve been warned.
Here’s a site that gives the rain collection points for the National Atmospheric Deposition Program. You can download data for most of these places since at least 1994. The data includes information on things like pH, nitrates, mercury, carbonate, sulfates,etc.
The links for the US map to find a collection site near you are listed near the botton under “NADP Network”
I have an Aqua Rain gravity water filter. Collected rain water can be treated with the appropriate ratio of bleach to water, if it is suspected of virus contamination - and pour into the Aqua Rain, thus providing (theoretically anyway) pure drinking water without the added bleach and pathogens.
Between the reverse osmosis system that I’ve been using for many years, current water stocks and the gravity filter I’m hoping that my water supply will be sufficient (and replaceable) when TSHF.
Old thread - Closed to increase Forum speed.