Just to show you how my day has gone, there's a bit of a water scare down here:

• The county sends out automated calls saying don't drink the water without boiling it for the next 48 hours at least.  My neighbor got one first and told me when I got home.  I got one a few hours later.
• The city and 2-3 local news agencies say it's safe to drink the water around here because we're on an independant system.

One of the two governmental  (and maybe news) agencies have screwed up.  So can anyone remind me why exactly I'm paying taxes when flipping a coin would be just as reliable source of information as one of the two governments I live in the jurisdiction of?

Can get a "Now you're doomed" from the people of rendo?  

BTW, merry christmas. 

buy bottled water, it's a status thing.

trust neither and begin looting!

Damn, doomed if you do, doomed if you don't!  Well, not really "doomed if you don't", I think it's best to avoid the water until you know for certain.  We had a bad water thing up here a few years back... safe to bath in, but not safe to drink... Lasted two weeks in some areas.

Oh and Merry Xmas... drink wine.

Quote - buy bottled water, it's a status thing.

Yeah, I always have some extra just in case, but something like this is the last thing I want do deal with right now.

Good luck with boiling water for forty-eight hours. You're gonna need a HUGE kettle. :laugh:

Switch to strong, spirited alcohol.  It will kill just about anything.

Well, at least they're trying to give you info.  That's a fairly recent thing in most municipalities.

oookay... either we have a new guy on the chlorine switch, or someone's been flinging animal carcasses over the wall. With the state of news agencies, I'd go with what the people at the treatment plant are saying.

When they say "don't drink the water", what about washing dishes and bathing? Things get on dishes and in eyes, too.

Collect rain water, melting snow also works fine, and this water comes with no healthy fluor, no Monsanto's vitamins, no "healthy" addons, no beautiful plastic flasks and is for free.

Collecting rainwater could be complicated if you dislike bird poop or bugs in it. And what it collects on the way through the brown smog cloud is anyone's guess. Fresh-fallen snow might work, before all the critters use it.

Ah, for the days when we got our water from limestone resevoirs... hundreds, if not thousands of years of filtering through stone, and before the better living through chemistry age.

Quote - And what it collects on the way through the brown smog cloud is anyone's guess.

This will not make any difference, this brown smog cloud is what you are breathing all the time.

And as for the pops and bugs a filter works fine and the bugs have minerals and useful things that your "healthy" food has no more since long decades ago.

boil the water for a few days and relax. Your hot water heater should kill most bacteria but only if its set above 140 degrees F.  For babies and little kids or very elderly take more care with washing dishes.

Remember that any short term disaster MUST be avoided if you hope to be present for the coming APOCOLYPSE in 2012. 

No matter what kawecki or survivorman says, I am not eating bugs!!! Healthy does not mean they won't come right back up after hitting an emotional stomach.  Water should not be chewy or crunchy.

I'll stick to Dasani water. You could add bleach to dishwater, but that probably wouldn't leave a good feeling in the bath...

Sudden urge to watch Soylent Green...

but what about the looting?

Quote - I'll stick to Dasani water.

Marketing at its finest, mineral water manufactured from the tap water of where ever the plant is located.

Quote - Collect rain water, melting snow also works fine, and this water comes with no healthy fluor, no Monsanto's vitamins, no "healthy" addons, no beautiful plastic flasks and is for free.

And also contains an exciting collection of sulphur dioxide and various other interesting water soluble toxins.

If rainwater was as good as some people maintain, the water companies would have gone out of business years ago.

Quote - - "And also contains an exciting collection of sulphur dioxide and various other interesting water soluble toxins."

As I said before, it will not make any difference, suphur dioxide is also what you are breathing every second and in contact with the water of your blood it turns into sulfuric acid in the same way.

Sulfur dioxide is much heavier than air, so there is much more sulfur dioxide in the surface of the earth where you are breathing than in the atmosphere.

Quote - - "If rainwater was as good as some people maintain, the water companies would have gone out of business years ago."

Ask the plants and many animals if is not good. Don't worry about the companies, they always will invent something to scare you and make you spend your last cents that you have and if you don't have any, the credit card companies will gently help you.

I have to defend Dasani water, here. I grew up in Tucson, where the water was from a limestone aquifer, and it had a sweet taste to it, thanks to the minerals in the rock. Dasani adds magnesium, which comes fairly close to that taste. Not as good, but better than what comes out of the tap in Phoenix, which tastes like Swamp Thing's used bath water, and has either a strong odor of chlorine, or a distinctly reddish hue.

Resume looting...

Dasani, huh?

You should read up on what happened in the UK

So all successful bottled water in the UK comes from pristine mountain springs, or exotic glaciers? (not being snide, really asking) Over here, it's common practice to use tap water and run it through filters, then sell it. We have 'water stores' and water vending machines that do just that, and quite openly. It would be like me installing an expensive and pain-in-the-rear-to-maintain water filter system for my house. The top selling waters in Phoenix are Arrowhead, Aquafina, and Crystal, only one of which comes from a central source. (Crystal) Arrowhead calls itself spring water, but dodges mentioning any actual springs.

On the other hand, Evian is a nice alternative once in a while, and good old Perrier.  Voss, Fiji, and whatever that water from Iceland is, basically gather dust on store shelves. Nestle's water has just appeared here. People just want water that hasn't come from a canal, and doesn't taste like poo.

Good Lord, when did water get so complicated?

Right, I'll define my terms of reference...

When I mention Water Companies, I'm specifically referring to the municipal companies who supply the stuff to our taps.  I regard the bottled water sellers with the same respect I have for double glazing salesmen.

The bottled water guys have a dreadful track record of late.  Perrier had their supply contaminated with benzene, Coca Cola (the Dasani guys) had to pull their product when their "health giving additive" was added in such ludicrous quantities that it was carcinogenic.  They'd had a bad start anyhow, due to them openly admitting they were selling tap water with additives.

As to kawecki's remarks about animals and water, there are several species of wildlife which are unsafe to eat because they contain high concentrations of dioxin, lead and cadmium.  Most industrialized areas have reduced wildlife; not all due to urbanization itself, many due to poisoned water supplies.  Yes, there are several species which thrive in polluted environments but I'm not in any hurry to eat rats, pigeons and cockroaches.  :)  Also, the specific problem with sulphur dioxide is, it doesn't stay in the places it's generated, either.  It becomes a widespread pollutant which is known for damaging trees, buildings and anything likely to stay put for a while.  Places such as Norway, which have relatively clean environments are now suffering acid rain from the industrialized areas of Europe.

Back to scanmead's question re UK bottled water... it's often marked as unsafe to give to young children and pregnant women so I guess that's a big "no" in the purity stakes.  I'll stick to tap water.  In my old home town of Sheffield, the tap water is pure enough to use in a car battery.

Quote - So all successful bottled water in the UK comes from pristine mountain springs, or exotic glaciers? (not being snide, really asking)

It does. In fact for it to be allowed to be labelled as "Mineral Water" it must be bottle at source with no processing or additions.

One amusing thing is that the brand called Highland Spring is sourced from one of the same springs that supplies Perth with its tap water :laugh:

Quote - Back to scanmead's question re UK bottled water... it's often marked as unsafe to give to young children and pregnant women so I guess that's a big "no" in the purity stakes.  I'll stick to tap water.  In my old home town of Sheffield, the tap water is pure enough to use in a car battery.

What the heck?! I mean, US laws would put warning lables on apples if they could, but what could be so dangerous in bottled water that wouldn't get the plant shut down?? I mean besides the occasional mix of carcinogenic bromides? ;)

This get more confusing and concerning by the minute.

well it was 1: selling the same water that was in the local taps, 2: the bromides...

but more so , and I quote

"Early advertisements referred to Dasani as "bottled spunk" or featured the tagline "can't live without spunk". These slogans were used seemingly oblivious to the fact that spunk is slang for semen in the UK."

Quote - These slogans were used seemingly oblivious to the fact that spunk is slang for semen in the UK."

Oh, and it is here in the states too...lololol.

Laurie

Attached Link: NASA Particle Map

Do marketing executives have any foothold in real life? I just watched a Spanish ad for ahem feminine protection products, in which the upshot was Mom is reliable as (the brand of) maxi pads. Huh?

One would expect better from Coca Cola, though. sigh

Quote - As to kawecki's remarks about animals and water, there are several species of wildlife which are unsafe to eat because they contain high concentrations of dioxin, lead and cadmium.

Of courseyou can not eat that, what is healthy are the artificial chickens feeded with corn and hormones, cow feeded with corn and cow bones and hormones again. Time to time you get a crazy cow, but this is no problem, it has no lead neither cadmiun.

Strange things, lead was used for thousand years for water systems and still today we can find lead pipes in many homes. Also lead was used in paints, glass and a lot of applications and the human population wasn't extint due the spreaed use of lead for thousands and thousands years, much worst, the populations has increased to many billions. Very strange........

Quote - Most industrialized areas have reduced wildlife;

Well, a tree will not survive much time in the middle of the asphalt, soon some drunk driver will smash it with his car.

Thanks God that the pollution do exist, if not long time ago my house should have been invaded and destroyed by plants and I had been eaten by termites or a lovely anaconda

But look at your avatar - see what all those chemicals have done to you?

Filters - or how I learnt to stop worrying and love tap water.

Quote - But look at your avatar - see what all those chemicals have done to you?

LOL, Esther. Signs of evolution? :woot:

no one ever thinks about the anacondas.

poor baby looks hungry

Doom doom doom da doom doom doom da doom-doom-doom!!