H2O 911

To get your eight glasses a day on the road, you’ll have to boil, buy, filter or purify

With almost a tenth of Canada flush with fresh water, it’s hard to believe access to a drinking-water supply could be a challenge anywhere in the country. But for the Outpost Arctic Expedition Team, ensuring a safe source for its 200-kilometre trek was definitely part of the planning. “You imagine the water would be really clean up there, but it wasn’t,” says editor-at-large Kevin Vallely, who led a five-member team across King William Island this past August (see “In the Footsteps of Franklin,” page 54). Instead, the team found layers of bird feces along the banks of the many tundra ponds, effectively contaminating the water.

As team leader, it was up to Vallely to find an unassailable supply of water for the gruelling two-week trek. One thing was certain: with each member of the team already carrying hundred-pound packs, bringing water along was out of the question. Luckily, the ponds meant a supply of raw water wasn’t an issue, so Vallely opted to bring a portable ceramic water filter system. “It worked really well—it took a minute-and-a-half to filter a litre of water.”

If you’re new to off-the-track travel, you might find the lack of access to safe drinking water a slightly scary circumstance. Safe Water for International Travelers (SWIT), an organization that rates drinking water quality in more than 220 countries, gives only 47 nations its top “5 Drop” rating—whereby safe, disinfected water is widely available. By contrast, almost all African countries score the lowest “1 Drop” rating. But most travellers end up in countries with a “3 Drop” rating—where access to safe water varies within the country, especially between urban and rural environments—including Brazil, Ecuador, Indonesia, South Africa, Thailand and Vietnam.

Luckily, there are four fairly reliable ways to make unsafe water safe: boil it, buy it, filter it or purify it. Boiling is always best—high heat kills any micro-organism—so if the water seems suspect in any restaurant or hotel, stick to boiled tea, says Vallely. Bottled water is also more widely available than ever before, but you can’t always trust it; sellers often refill empty bottles from taps that aren’t safe. The rule of thumb: only buy bottles of water, carbonated drinks, beer or wine with seals or caps absolutely intact.

Like the Arctic team, you can also bring along a portable filter designed for travelling. Portable units pump in water from any source and run it through an internal filter that removes organic waste, bacteria and parasites. When purchasing one, be sure it specifically removes giardia and cryptosporidium (referenced on labels as protozoa or cysts), two common water-borne parasites that cause traveller’s diarrhea.

Even the best portables have limits, though. For one, they don’t remove viruses (like hepatitis A and E, and polio) that are so small they can penetrate a filter’s pores. Water-borne viruses aren’t a big issue in outback North America, but pose a serious threat in less developed regions. Nor do portables address non-biological contaminants like chemicals.

To purify water, travellers can buy iodine, chlorine or chlorine dioxide in tablet or liquid form. Iodine is better than chlorine for killing pathogens in dirty water and has long been around for travellers, but it leaves a foul taste, is harmful with extended use and is only reliable against bacteria and viruses (it takes a long time to kill giardia and is not effective against crypto and other parasites). Chlorine dioxide kills all three—bacteria, viruses and parasites—and is less corrosive and more soluble.  With any chemical purifier, says Richard Andrew of NSF International, a non-profit organization that helps set public health standards worldwide, you should filter water beforehand, since organic waste can absorb the disinfectant before it reaches its microbial targets.

Whichever method you choose—portable or purifier—be sure to pack it so you can drink to your travels in good health.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 at 2:06 pm and is filed under Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site. Add to del.icio.us.