[pct-l] Bleach as Water Treatment

[Thomas Jamrog]

Anything that Steeleye says is correct.  The CDC out of Atlanta website also has info on using bleach for purifying drinking water.   I am amazed at how little you need.  I have a dug well here at the house and needed to wipe out some e-coli that got in there somehow off surface water.  It is 4 feet in diameter and 12' deep, with over 1,000 gallons on hold.   1/4 of a cup of bleach was all that was recommended by the water testing firm that analyzed the water. 
Uncle Tom   
"It doesn't work to leap a twenty-foot chasm in two ten-foot jumps". 
-Source unknown





On Aug 31, 2012, at 2:49 PM, CHUCK CHELIN wrote:

> Good morning, Drake,
> 
> I have been successful and pleased using 1$/quart Clorox for many years.  For
> most water I add two drops of bleach per liter of water.
> http://www.trailjournals.com/entry.cfm?id=264360
> 
> I don’t know exactly how many 2-drop doses are in the little one-ounce
> dropper bottle that I carry, but it’s a lot.  Clorox is available at just
> about any little store along the way.
> 
> You can learn more about it by doing a net search for something like
> “Clorox water purification”.
> 
> There’s a continuum of opinion between the folks who don’t treat anything,
> all the way to those who do everything possible.  There is no useable
> process that I know of that will absolutely guarantee perfect water, not
> even boiling for many minutes.  Don’t believe it?  Some places in SoCal
> have relatively high levels of uranium in the water.  Will boiling improve
> that?
> 
> I’ve used Aqua Mira, and it’s OK, but I don’t like the price, the
> relatively high dosages, and the need to wait around 5 minutes before I
> dump it in the water jug.
> 
> Iodine is effective – and inexpensive – but I don’t feel that it’s a good
> idea to ingest that much of the stuff over 3-4 months.  It makes the water
> taste and look bad, but the addition of about ¼ tablet of vitamin-C, only
> after the iodine has acted, completely removes the objectionable taste and
> color as if my magic.
> 
> We all get to decide for ourselves.
> 
> Enjoy your hike,
> 
> Steel-Eye
> 
> -Hiking the Pct since before it was the PCT – 1965
> 
> http://www.trailjournals.com/steel-eye
> 
> http://www.trailjournals.com/SteelEye09/
> 
> 
> On Fri, Aug 31, 2012 at 10:52 AM, Matt Parker <zerosignal74 at comcast.net>wrote:
> 
>> Hello All,
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> There has been a lot of talk about Water Treatment lately on this email
>> list. I currently use Aqua Mira as a chemical treatment which works great.
>> It's light and easy to use. The only drawback is that it is expensive
>> especially when using it for a 4-5 month thru hike. I have seen a lot of
>> hikers on the PCT using bleach as a water treatment which was new to me but
>> that appears to be the easiest, lightest, and cheapest way to go. Does
>> anyone on this list use bleach to treat their water and if so can you
>> provide some general guidelines on how to use it (number of drops per
>> liter,
>> type of bleach, etc.)?
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> 
>> Drake
>> 
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