Re: water treatment in the back country ??
Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2011 3:13 pm
Nope the spare batteries and purification tabs in my kit are there for that reason.
Penners.....how clever
Penners.....how clever
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My question for any water treatment method is...how do you know it did work? E.G. perhaps the water was clean enough to drink without treatment.sparky wrote:No, but only because it is stored in a liter bottle with the top chopped off, this is what I purify in. It's well protected. Before that I would wrap it up in my beanie.
The only time that lamp is exposed is when its purifying. A less diligent individual might have an issue with it.
My paranoid thoughts revolve around fumbling it as its so small. It was a bit of a leap of faith, but I have used it exclusively for 4 years, with great results. I'm all over the desert and coastal areas too, so my pump is the better choice there.
I spent REI points on it, and it was on sale, got it cheap
I did a little searching...can't find the Steripen output but US Public Health Service lists required UV saturation to kill virus/bacteria is 16,000 microwatt-sec/cm2. Steripen puts out UV-C at the most deadly wavelength, whereas sunlight is primarily UV-A and UV-B (B is shorter and most damaging, but not nearly as lethal as UV-C). Sunlight UV-B at sea-level/equator is about 250 microwatts/cm2, but increases with altitude (about 50% higher, or 375 microwatts/cm2, at 10k). So if I calculate correctly, in less than 60 seconds you would have kill at the water surface of a lake. However, Giardia cysts may require as much as 90k microwatt-sec/cm2. I believe this data suggests that taking water from the top 6" of a lake will be relatively safe.fishhunter wrote:My question for any water treatment method is...how do you know it did work? E.G. perhaps the water was clean enough to drink without treatment.sparky wrote:No, but only because it is stored in a liter bottle with the top chopped off, this is what I purify in. It's well protected. Before that I would wrap it up in my beanie.
The only time that lamp is exposed is when its purifying. A less diligent individual might have an issue with it.
My paranoid thoughts revolve around fumbling it as its so small. It was a bit of a leap of faith, but I have used it exclusively for 4 years, with great results. I'm all over the desert and coastal areas too, so my pump is the better choice there.
I spent REI points on it, and it was on sale, got it cheap
I wonder if anyone has done a comparison of the natural UV light available at 10000' vs. the steripen?