By: MJ + PJ
First world and/or first class travelers will probably learn something real reading this post. For those who have been or stayed anywhere classed as second or third world or class, you’ll probably have your own fond story to tell us!
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WATER ACCESSIBILITY
Although Earth’s surface is about 71% water, about 96% of this is in the oceans and has this constituent called salt, making it undrinkable. About one hundredth of one percent of the water on this planet is both accessible and drinkable. Most of it is locked up in the three largest ice fields on the planet. If your home has drinkable water within a 30 minute walk, you’re one of the 6/7ths of humans on this planet who have reliably clean water.
RAW WATER
Visiting South America has given us a greater appreciation of water quality, availability and sources. With money and when in towns or cities, bottled water is easy to obtain. Sin or con gas! Seeing the locals drinking the city tap water is not a guarantee that your GI system can deal with the same water. They may be accustomed to drinking the raw (untreated) water.
You need to be aware of any raw water consumption risks, and also how to deal with water quality challenges, well before you encounter them. You are likely going where others have been before. Reading travel blogs related to an area or a trek, and checking authoritative sources is always a good idea. If the water is either risky or superb, you’ll hear about it. If you hear nothing, consider it risky. In preparing for our W Trek in Torres del Pines National Park, Chile, we were assured that “the water in the park is the safest, cleanest, purest glacial melt water”. This was very hard to convince ourselves of and regardless we remained vigilant. The CDC has a quite thorough section on water safety with backcountry and travel.
The challenge in remote areas when traveling in foreign countries is identifying what a suitable water source is, when usual sources are unavailable. This can be tricky. Clean looking water is not guaranteed to be safe water. Domesticated animals, careless humans (mining runoff, industry byproducts, careless camping habits, poor waste management etc), and volcanic contaminants can easily render available water risky to health and unsuitable to source.
DETERMINING A SOURCE FOR WATER COLLECTION
The general rule for choosing a collection source point is that (like stories and gossip) the closer to the source you get the less contaminated the water (or story). If you can deduce where it comes from, and what has been near or in the source or catchment, then you have managed most of the risk.
See that stream joining the river? What is grazing upstream? Who lives up there? Can you see the spring or glacier? Is all the water moving, or are there stagnant pools along the course? Walk upstream 50% further than you think you should. If there is a trail of any sort next to the water course, find somewhere else. Feeling assured that you have a “better” source is more likely than feeling confident that you have a “clean” source. Don’t be complacent or overconfident.
(The feature photo above for this article is of a cascade that feeds Ausangate Lake in Peru. The lake is government property and regulated, and had two clear catchments – one being the large glacier, and two being a cascade which had a catchment above and separate from an alpaca grazing catchment. We watched a stray dog and enough people near the water to still treat this water, but it was not likely contaminated.)
TREATING RAW WATER
Once a low risk source has been identified, then treating that water properly is the priority. With sanitation methods from low risk sourced water, raw water can be made drinkable.There are a few ways to treat or sanitize raw water:
- Boil it to 100*C for at least 2 to 5 minutes with a vigorous rolling boil. (A boil at high altitude may not sanitize.)
- Filter it through a proven filter system, properly and diligently maintained.
- Kill it with chemicals (chlorine, bleach, iodine) that won’t hurt you. Be aware of iodine health contraindications in particular.
- Blast it with intense UV light.
NONE of these methods will remove impurities at the ion level (heavy metals, inorganic compounds, elements) – they will only mostly reduce ( usually >99%) the concentration of nasties such as bacteria, parasites and viruses by either blocking them or damaging/killing them. Hence once you treat the water it may not look or taste “pure”, but it is sanitized. If you are remote and you have limited fuel supplies for heating, boiling can expend fuel rapidly if starting from very cold streams or glacial melt. (If you only have volcanic lake, quarry pond or salt water available, then you have an inorganic contamination problem outside the scope of this post.)
We use a combination of the following when backcountry camping:
- Being particular about initial source of water.
- Strict filtration managing dirty and clean ends of the system.
- Chlorine tabs after filtration, given generous time to work.
- Boiling and cooling for drinking water (only if still in any doubt after 1, 2, 3)
Our water filter system has been used intermittently since 2001. It is a Katadyn filter, and nothing fancy, but it does the job and is simple to use. The life straw is on our radar as a backup system – although not as practical for filling containers or in very arid areas, it presents as useful where water is abundant or in hotel bathrooms for brushing teeth or to avoid buying lots of plastic bottles of water.
WORST CASE SCENARIO
Sometimes you do the best you can and you can still consume contaminated “water”. It can be an error in your treatment of raw water, or can be accidental because your guard was down regarding how water was used to prepare something you consumed. Good examples are: raw foods washed in contaminated water, ice made from untreated water, and unsanitary beverage production techniques.
For this reason you need a backup plan of how to recover the quickest from GI upset. This is something to have on hand, not something you decide you’ll go and get. One, you won’t feel up to doing that, and two, you could spend a lot of time finding a place that has it. Something like this (a food not a drug; also able to be used by children also) in your medical kit is recommended:
Getting sick from contaminated water is no fun (see this nice list), so we have several of these packets in our medical kit (along with electrolyte replacement powder packets, like Pedialyte or Gatorade). MJ had giardiasis, once (on his bike trip). He was complacent collecting water, once, and did not have a strategy for recovery. Once is lesson enough. Dying from contaminated water would be very unfortunate, yet many still do each year.
Be careful and diligent out there!
