Real World Situation

[mikeo80]

Here in Fayetteville, NC, we have been treated to a major water shortage problem.

It seens that at one of the two water treatment plants, a 48 inch high pressure pipe burst with the resilts being 3/4 of the city having no water, the rest of us having very low water pressure. (That is the area I am in)

The local utility has managed to reroute the water supply to other systems and slowly brought the water pressure back up to normal.

Now comes the another part of the puzzle. We are also under a boil water restriction until further notice. Probably Sunday will be the ending point to this part of the problem.

When I was out doing some of my "honey-do" list, I noticed people buying large quantities of bottled water, no doubt to remove the need for boiling water. (BTW, the local utility recomended a five minute boil!!)

Here come my questions.

1) As I understand the position of the break point, it is down system of the area where our water is treated. If the water is treated, who cares which pipe you use? Or am I missing a point that I have no knowledge of? I read something on the order that if that water did not keep flowing, problems could develop.

2) In your experience, can you explain the long boil time? If this was totally untreated water, sure, no question. I know that the river we get our water from is considered a very active one for biological life in the water. (Read little green beasties that would LOVE to get into YOUR intestinal track.) The local utility uses chlorene and ammonia to prepair our water.

Just thought I would share the situation with you all and see what your thoughts are. IMHO, in a T2K or TMP situation, clean water would be of UTMOST importance in trying to stabilize an area.

Mike

[helbent4]

Originally Posted by mikeo80

1) As I understand the position of the break point, it is down system of the area where our water is treated. If the water is treated, who cares which pipe you use? Or am I missing a point that I have no knowledge of? I read something on the order that if that water did not keep flowing, problems could develop.

2) In your experience, can you explain the long boil time? If this was totally untreated water, sure, no question. I know that the river we get our water from is considered a very active one for biological life in the water. (Read little green beasties that would LOVE to get into YOUR intestinal track.) The local utility uses chlorene and ammonia to prepair our water.

Mike,

Interesting question, and until someone who has real knowledge contributes something, I'll make an educated guess.

1) The "pure" water could go through pipes that are not considered safe or are not certified for carrying drinking water. I would imagine such standards are extremely high there are serious liability risks if they're compromised, or maybe by regulation they have to issue a boil notice if there's any variance.

2) I would imagine they're just being on the safe side. Some pathogens and b bacteria can survive for several minutes of boiling, although only at higher elevations where the boiling point of water is reduced compared to, say, Fayetteville.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling

You could always contact them yourself, see what they have to say

http://www.faypwc.com/consumer_contact.htm

That said, I agree that clean water will be rare in T2K, and that PCs will need to regularly boil water unless they somehow have access to water purification tablets or equipment!

Tony

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by helbent4

That said, I agree that clean water will be rare in T2K, and that PCs will need to regularly boil water unless they somehow have access to water purification tablets or equipment!

Tony

And the side effect of water purification tablets or liquid is that it makes the water taste HORRIBLE -- the one time I tried it, I didn't know whether I wanted to die of feeling sick or die of dehydration!

[Snake Eyes]

Back in the 90's I lived in a part of Washington DC that got water treatment from the Army Corps of Engineers and three or four times I can recall getting the boil-for-five notice. The culprit was always Cryptosporidium (which is highly resistant to chlorine). The warning usually came after periods of heavy rain that had caused excessive animal waste runoff into the Potomac, though at least once it was due to equipment failure. I always thought that was some pretty 3rd world bullshit, along with the power going out every time it rained.

[Nowhere Man 1966]

Here in Pittsburgh, I remember in 1988 when the Ashland oil tank collapsed and the oil went into the Monongahela and downward into the Ohio, almost all the communities had to restrict water use except mine. Most communities get their water directly from one of the three rivers but mine gets it from an underwater spring that is under the Ohio so we were the only one that had no water restrictions. I know in times of emergencies a few surrounding communities can now bum water off of us. We were like a small island surrounded by chaos.

Chuck

[irishboy]

1.) I think the key word in the whole situation is 'system'. Once the break occurred and the pressure was lost, who knows how far back up the pipeline any contaminants could have spread? Sure, once pressure has been restored, it's unlikely that you'd have anything new coming in, but if there was an issue during the 'down' period, it could take a while before anyone found it. So they have to treat the whole system as possibly contaminated.

2.) I did a quick google search using the terms "boiling water for purification" and lots of relevant data came up. One site (http://giardiaclub.com/water-purification.html) specifically addressed the boiling time, saying that the long times aren't neccessary, as long as you only count the time that the water is at a full, rolling boil. That, and that for higher elevations you need to add more time (1 extra minute for every 1,000 ft of elevation).

[Legbreaker]

When dealing with the public, the rule of thumb is "treat everyone like an idiot".
Although the water might only need say 30 seconds at a full boil to be safe, there are some people out there that begin counting the very moment the water is placed on the heat... Unfortunately for the gene pool, the authorities have to consider these unfortunates when issuing instructions.