{"id":1334,"date":"2016-06-24T05:45:30","date_gmt":"2016-06-24T05:45:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/192.241.231.59\/?p=1334"},"modified":"2016-06-24T05:49:35","modified_gmt":"2016-06-24T05:49:35","slug":"drinking-swimming-pool-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vosvado.com\/drinking-swimming-pool-water","title":{"rendered":"How to Make Swimming Pool Water (Reasonably) Safe to Drink in an Emergency"},"content":{"rendered":"

Water, water everywhere\u2026but is it safe to drink??<\/em><\/p>\n

You\u2019ve thought it. I\u2019ve thought it. We\u2019ve all thought it.<\/p>\n

If there were ever a major catastrophe that caused a long-term disruption in the water supply, your plan is to use your swimming pool\u2019s (or your neighbor\u2019s pool) water to get through the crisis, right?<\/p>\n

I know that had been MY assumption when I first started thinking about emergency preparedness!<\/p>\n

After all, averaged across the United States, there is one swimming pool for every 10 homes (go ahead: check it out on Google Earth. You will be ah-may-zed at how many swimming pools are in your \u2018hood!). Given the average capacity of both above- and below-ground pools, this works out to around 2000 gallons of water for every single household in this country, effectively \u201creservoired\u201d in people\u2019s backyards!!<\/p>\n

But is it really that simple? Can you really just scoop buckets of water out of your pool and go on about your post-disaster day?<\/span><\/p>\n

The short answer is NO\u2026but the long answer is a (qualified) yes!<\/span><\/p>\n

Make yourself comfortable, because I\u2019m going to start by outlining the main reasons drinking \u201craw\u201d pool water is a VERY BAD IDEA, and then I\u2019m going to conclude with HOW TO GET AROUND THIS VERY BAD IDEA at the end of the blog.<\/p>\n

Ready? Let\u2019s dive in! (Get it? DIVE<\/em> in? Heh heh!)<\/p>\n

TWO REASONS NOT<\/span> TO DRINK \u201cRAW\u201d POOL WATER<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Your pool is full of poison.<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\"is

Those aren’t martinis he’s mixing….<\/p><\/div>\n

And I\u2019m not just talking about chlorine or bromine. Those bad boys evaporate pretty quickly on their own, or you can just boil them off. And it\u2019s precisely because of their flighty character that we have a problem. You see, in order to prevent these antibacterial agents from leaving the pool practically as fast as the pool guy can dump them in, they are always complexed with other chemicals called \u201cstabilizers.\u201d And guess what? Those stabilizing chemicals are some nasty shit.<\/p>\n

Take, for example, cyanuric acid. This common stabilizer is derived from <insert trumpet noise here> cyanide. You know: the stuff that kills spies. And, potentially, you.<\/p>\n

So if you let a glass of pool water sit around for a few days (or you boil it), you\u2019ll evaporate off the chlorine or bromine. But the stabilizer (i.e., poisonous shit) will still be there, just chillin\u2019. No bueno.<\/p>\n

Not all bacteria are susceptible to chlorine\/bromine.<\/h4>\n
\"is

Could be a flagellate; could be an alien spacecraft. Best not to take chances, either way.<\/p><\/div>\n

Sad, but true: there are single-celled organisms that are immune to our antibacterial weaponry. I\u2019m talking Cryptosporidium (which periodically makes a surprise appearance in municipal water supplies), Giardia (that lovely baddie which makes hikers violently ill when they drink out of a not-so-pristine mountain stream), etc. If water is in short supply, the last<\/em> thing you want to be dealing with is the dehydrating effects of projectile vomiting and explosive diarrhea!<\/p>\n

<\/h4>\n

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<\/h4>\n

But what if you need to drink that water anyway??<\/h3>\n

Okay, so now you know drinking pool water straight out of the deep end is a bad idea.<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s say you find yourself in an extended emergency situation and you\u2019ve either consumed all your stored potable water\u2026or never stored drinking water in the first place! Well, then, using your pool water as a personal reservoir may be your only option.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve read a ton of stuff online about the possibility of building a solar still to remove all the chemicals from your pool water (via a bucket or barrel that you\u2019ve set up on the side, obviously), but even in the driest environments, this just doesn\u2019t seem practical.<\/p>\n

At the scale one could reasonably construct a solar still within the confines of an urban backyard, the numbers I\u2019ve found indicate that on a daily basis, you would fall far short of the quantity of potable water you would need for a single person, let alone an entire family.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s the solution? Build a Reverse Osmosis Kit!<\/h3>\n
    \n
  1. For about $100, you can buy yourself a handy-dandy portable four-stage Reverse Osmosis (RO) set-up<\/a>.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. You\u2019ll also need 12V water pump<\/a> that delivers the minimum psi for your RO system (that\u2019ll be another $60).<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. And finally, to store your newly-cleaned water, you\u2019ll want an RO storage tank<\/a> (about $30).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    This set-up (for a grand total of about $200) should remove approximately 95{5b94df0808d5051ae4460ba229ec68b809d99f898aebd4fa5019c7ba642362c2} of all<\/em> minerals and contaminates in the pool water, making it\u2014in my opinion (and remember, I am neither\u00a0a doctor nor a public health official)\u2014reasonably safe for human consumption IF there is no other alternative<\/u><\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

    ************<\/p>\n

    One other point: if your power goes out, your pool pump goes out, too. Which means that within a few days, your pool is going to turn a lovely emerald green.<\/p>\n

    This we do not want. At least, not any sooner than is avoidable.<\/p>\n

    So if you don\u2019t already keep your pool covered, be sure to have a dark tarp on hand that you can toss across the pool the second you realize that you\u2019re going to be without power for the foreseeable future. The tarp\/cover won\u2019t make your pool immune to an eventual algal bloom, but it\u2019ll delay it. It’ll also help cut down on evaporation of a precious resource.<\/p>\n

    And once that algae does<\/em> appear, which it inevitably will? Just treat it with a camp filter (e.g., a Platypus Gravity Works<\/a>) to take out the big chunks before running the water through your trusty RO set-up.<\/p>\n

    It\u2019s not that your RO system can\u2019t handle algal water directly; it\u2019s just that pre-filtering your slimly pool muck will extend the life of your RO cartridges that much longer.<\/p>\n

    So in summary: using pool water for anything other than flushing toilets and washing clothes\/bodies should only be considered as a last resort.<\/u><\/em><\/strong><\/span> After all, even with the RO system I\u2019ve described above, you\u2019re still looking at residual contaminates from the pool water stabilizers. Those toxins accumulate. Remember that.<\/p>\n

    But if your pool water is all that stands between you and certain death from dehydration, well, you\u2019ll be happy you have put together an RO Pool Survival Kit beforehand!<\/p>\n

    And now it\u2019s your turn! What are your<\/em> emergency hydration plans? Rain barrels? CostCo flats of bottled water? A secret artesian spring? Post your thoughts in the comments below!<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

    If you\u2019re not already on my newsletter list, what the heck are you waiting for?! I deliver all sorts of tasty little morsels straight to my subscribers\u2019 inboxes every week. Sign up HERE<\/a> \u2026and get a free Emergency Guide JUST FOR THE LADIES, to boot!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Water, water everywhere\u2026but is it safe to drink?? You\u2019ve thought it. I\u2019ve thought it. We\u2019ve all thought it. If there were ever a major catastrophe that caused a long-term disruption in the water supply, your plan is to use your swimming pool\u2019s (or your neighbor\u2019s pool) water to get through the crisis, right? I know that had been MY assumption … <\/p>\n

    Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,34,7],"tags":[23,9,14,21,26],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vosvado.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1334"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vosvado.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vosvado.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vosvado.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vosvado.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vosvado.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vosvado.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vosvado.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vosvado.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vosvado.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}