Preferable water source

[Turkey Doughnuts]

Not having the fund to get out of a city I need to try and make do where I am and hope for the best. With that in mind my thoughts have turned to getting water.

Rain collection etc is out of the question as a rent a room in a shared out and the landlord wont even let us plant a flower or two and there is the roommates taking my stuff if they have non issue. If things got bad the landlord would not be in much of a position to do anything about me putting some bucket out however.

There happens to be both a canal and river nearby.

The canal is full of fly tipping and you can see oil slicks on the surface. The river also gets fly tipping and raw sewage dumped into it during times of rain. I have seen needles etc floating in both, and both also unfortunately are vulnerable to contamination from farm chemicals too.

The question is which source would be better for water and how would you go about cleaning it up. I am leaning towards the river as I can try to walk up stream somewhat from the sewage and can not think of anything I could do to clear up the barge chemical spills in the canal water.

I current have some chlorine tables and a millbank bag.

[pseudonym]

Get a tarp, great water catchers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgdK942eh-s

Invest in a hiking water filter.

Katydyn Be Free:

https://www.outdoorgb.com/p/Katadyn_BeF ... InEALw_wcB

Filters last 1,000 Litres

Saywer squeeze:

https://sawyereurope.com/water-filtrati ... ion-system

Filter- lasts a lifetime

I have both.

I wouldn't drink from a Canal ever; Streams as close to the source as possible.

[GillyBee]

One plus of being in a city for anything less than the apocalypse is that the powers that be have a vested interest in ensuring that city people have access to drinking water - it stops riots. Ferfal pointed out that the cities were always the first to get water and electricity back after an outage in Argentina for that very reason.

A 5l water container or two under the bed would help - maybe keep one extra to "share" with your roommate. That would cover the usual city outages of half a day without any stress and would double as a water container to be filled from a bowser if the water goes out for longer without looking "prepper".

If you are down to hunting for water from the canal, I dont think funds will come into it, you would need to be prepared to bug out at a moment's notice as everyone around you would also be living on their wits/rioting and might well have burnt down half the city. In that scenario a portable filter like the Sawyer would be a lifesaver as would a good bug out bag. I'd be very discreet with the bag though as if it was that bad the cities would also have the army or local gangs out on the streets checking anyone looking out of the ordinary.

[jennyjj01]

Not having the fund to get out of a city I need to try and make do where I am and hope for the best. With that in mind my thoughts have turned to getting water.

Rain collection etc is out of the question as a rent a room in a shared out and the landlord wont even let us plant a flower or two and there is the roommates taking my stuff if they have non issue. If things got bad the landlord would not be in much of a position to do anything about me putting some bucket out however.

There happens to be both a canal and river nearby.

It depends on what disaster level you are dealing with.

Water supply for an inner city shared accommodation would be a much different proposition to being in the suburbs or a rural area. I'm in the suburbs but can only speculate as to what you need. As GillyBee said, the 'authorities' would lay on standpipes or bowsers to try to subdue unrest. How much that would succeed is the big unknown. Anticipate monster queues at best. Queues that you wouldn't want to be in.

Personally, I'd look to independent supply too. If in shared accom, then get with your neighbours and build your own rain collection, such as re-routing the downspouts into a wheely bin? or collecting with a tarp. You need a large surface area to get a decent yield.

For ANY harvested water, definitely get a few life straws or similar filters,
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00 ... UTF8&psc=1
coupled with water filtration tablets, cheap on amazon. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07 ... UTF8&psc=1
£50 now might be a good insurance. Plus maybe get a few days worth of supermarket 2L smart price water at 9p per litre from Asda/Tesco!.

River, or canal? I'd go river ( or better yet, stream) every time. The fact it flows gives it a better chance of being fresh. Collected rain, generally cleaner unless we have a nuclear fallout situation?

[ForgeCorvus]

Harvest from the fastest flow as near to source as possible...... Basically, pick canals last. I'd seriously think about gathering water from a fish pond before a canal.

If your only option is going to be urban water courses make sure your filter can deal with chemicals and heavy metals. Activated Charcoal (Bonechar) can do this... I'm told its the only medium that remove Fluoride.

The next thing you need to check is the Absolute Pore Rating (not the Nominal which most cheap filters advertise, more on the difference Here.).
A rating of 0.1 (such as the Sawyer Mini) will remove "99.99999% of all bacteria, such as salmonella, cholera and E.coli, removing 99.9999% of all protozoa (such as giardia and cryptosporidium), and removing 100% of microplastics." (quote from the Sawyer website)..... However, to extract viruses you'll need to go smaller then that, 0.01 seem to be the 'gold standard'

An other option for dealing with the pathogens is chemical treatment. Such as chlorine tablets, bleach or iodine (not recommended for some medical conditions).
Or good old fashioned Boiling
You'd still need to use a suitable Charcoal Filter to shift the non-organic contaminants though.

[Arzosah]

If you *do* collect water from a council-supplied bowser, bear in mind that some have been vandalised/ poisoned in the past. It's not common, not at all, but it happens http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/4166515.stm

[jansman]

I agree with all of the above ,totally. I would opt for the flowing water first.Do you have a bucket,or container to put water into? That might sound a daft question,but if you get the message from the water company that they are turning it off,for whatever reason,you’ll need something to put water into for the duration.

Do you have some stored water? Even a few two litre bottles of own brand ( how can you brand water? ) supermarket H2O can tide you over in an emergency.

You have a mill bank bag and puritabs,so that’s great.Do you have the means to boil water? It’s probably the most effective and low tech way to kill nasties in water.

I will second the Sawyer filters also. Water filters can be prohibitively expensive,but Sawyers are about 25 quid,and will effectively,last for ever.I have one in my get home bag,as there are watercourses on my potential walk home, and it saves carting heavy water ( other than the two x half litre bottles)One main advantage of the Sawyer is that it screws onto standard ‘pop bottle’ threads,making it versatile. One of those,combined with your mill bank bag,and purification tablets would give you a good set up for your situation.

It is easy to forget the importance of water,as we take it so much for granted.
It is also very easy to forget that not everyone has access to water catchment and babbling brooks,so I hope you are able to come up with a workable solution.

[jansman]

I’ll stand corrected on the price of the Sawyer.Best I could find on eBay was £26.95 to about £29/30. Still a good investment though.

[Turkey Doughnuts]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I am sold on the sawyer filter, though the price is high enough to sting so it is a purchase I am going to need to plan for or sell something to raise the cash. But is it actually necessary since I already have the mill bank bag? I like the tarp too as it would have several uses and that kind of value/efficiency matters to me. I already own a poncho, while a lot smaller it could be rigged to catch something.

Personally I do not see how simply running with a bug out bag would be useful as It seems it is just some supplies to get you where you are going. As I have no where to go all that bag would do is delay the inevitable so it is not a particularly cost effective investment and creating one is well beyond my means at this point.

I do have some 2l bottles of water but one bedroom is not enough space to store water along with everything else. It already looks like a storage room. And I do need to try and live everyday in it too, so it is quite limited.

[jansman]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I am sold on the sawyer filter, though the price is high enough to sting so it is a purchase I am going to need to plan for or sell something to raise the cash. But is it actually necessary since I already have the mill bank bag? I like the tarp too as it would have several uses and that kind of value/efficiency matters to me. I already own a poncho, while a lot smaller it could be rigged to catch something.

Personally I do not see how simply running with a bug out bag would be useful as It seems it is just some supplies to get you where you are going. As I have no where to go all that bag would do is delay the inevitable so it is not a particularly cost effective investment and creating one is well beyond my means at this point.

I do have some 2l bottles of water but one bedroom is not enough space to store water along with everything else. It already looks like a storage room. And I do need to try and live everyday in it too, so it is quite limited.

If all I had was the mill bank bag and purification tablets, then I would be ok. A means to boil is a plus(and in my opinion,still the best way).Your poncho will double as a tarp.All kit should be able to do double duty.As for storage,the recommended amount is one gallon per day, per person.That is bare minimum. It is 2x2 litre bottles per day. I am guessing you have more than a day’s worth?

You are aware,and have the knowledge to sort water in a crisis. That is the most important tool of all. Your post has made me re - examine my own water storage,and for that I thank you.