[pct-l] CDC recommendations for water treatment

[jcil000-pctchat at yahoo.com]

Excellent. Thanks Lyle !




________________________________
From: Lyle R. Anderson II <lyle at nickelsax.com>
To: jcil000-pctchat at yahoo.com; Bill Burge <bill at burge.com>
Cc: pct-l at backcountry.net
Sent: Fri, October 22, 2010 12:22:17 PM
Subject: RE: [pct-l] CDC recommendations for water treatment

There are many UV light systems out there, the NSF, whose certification the CDC 
is recommending you look for, classification standard 55 deals with UV light 
systems. There are two Classes A and B. Their Containment Guide for 
Cryptosporidium lists the following Standards as applicable: "Standard 53, 
Standard 58" the two the CDC references, and... "Standard 55 (Class A)"  which 
is the UV light 


"NSF/ANSI Standard 55: Ultraviolet Microbiological Water Treatment Systems
Overview: This standard establishes requirements for point-of-use (POU) and 
point-of-entry (POE) non-public water supply (non-PWS) ultraviolet systems and 
includes two optional classifications. Class A systems (40,000 uwsec/cm2) are 
designed to disinfect and/or remove microorganisms from contaminated water, 
including bacteria and viruses, to a safe level. Class B systems (16,000 
uw-sec/cm2) are designed for supplemental bactericidal treatment of public 
drinking water or other drinking water, which has been deemed acceptable by a 
local health agency."
>From 
http://www.nsf.org/business/drinking_water_treatment/standards.asp?program=DrinkingWatTre



The NSF lists several units meeting this certification (WQA, has several more 
listed on their site that meet that standard from their testing:  
http://www.wqa.org/goldseal/4.html )
The Steripen has been certified by WQA against the "US EPA STANDARD FOR 
MICROBIOLOGICAL WATER PURIFIERS"  rather than NSF 55. 
http://www.wqa.org/goldseal/14.html, 


You can search WQA and NSF for lists of products, or for a particular product to 
see what has been, or if it has been, certified and for what. Granted there 
could be products not certified (as the CDC states) and still work, as 
certification does cost money, and is voluntary. 

http://www.wqa.org/sitelogic.cfm?id=1165&section=3
http://www.nsf.org/certified/DWTU/


As for Products, there are many UV devices out there. From large scale systems 
used by cities (Like Seattle, who states Cryptosporidium as one of the reasons 
why they use UV light 
http://www.cityofseattle.net/util/About_SPU/Water_System/Water_Sources_&_Treatment/Cedar_River_Watershed/CEDARRIVE_200312081358174.asp),
 to inline home and business models, faucet mounted units, to handheld  units 
for travel and hiking like the SteriPen. Your second link seems to be targeted 
at medical facilities, who probably would not be using units that treat only a 
liter at a time unless no other option is available as their water needs are 
significant. And the "Common level"   may be referring to the products that 
would fall into the NSF 55 Class B, verses those that fall in the A class, but 
as the CDC doesn't define  "Common level" that's my guess by looking at NSF 
standard's overview quoted above.  So is the SteriPens common level or not? No 
way to know, as there's no definition....  What we do know is WQA has tested it 
against the US EPA standard for Microbiological Water Purifiers and has 
certified it for reduction claims of "Bacteria, Cyst, and Virus" and that 
various reputable institutes have published about UV light, and or the steripen 
and found that it can be effective...
Do a search on Google for "uv light water treatment -steripen" and you will 
find  non steripen products that use UV light to treat water ,  make it "uv 
light water treatment  handheld -steripen" and you may find some other handheld 
options