Water Filter Failure

I used a Katadyn pocket filter (ceramic element) many years ago on one trip. The last day I used it to filter water from the headwaters of a small river which looked a little cloudy. It removed the cloudiness. Next morning we caught a bus home.
That evening both my wife and I were SICK. Doctor called. I think we were each out for 24 hours, like really OUT.

It turned out that we were downstream of a Sewerage Treatment Plant (STP) of elderly vintage serving a nearby town (Mittagong). The virus overload was incredible. We survived, just. Mechanical filters do not remove viruses, warm or cold weather, new or old cartridges.

The joke was that this STP fed into a river which fed into the main water supply for the biggest city in Australia. The Mittagong Town Council saw no reason to upgrade the STP because it was serving their citizens just fine. Any problems with the outflow were 'not their worry'. In the end the State government replaced the STP with a full tertiary system at State expense.

I now use a Steripen Adventurer, but we also are infinitely more cautious about where we get our water from in the first place.

Cheers

not to start a flame war about the steripen here… but this is why i have one… that and the 3.6 oz weight savings ;)

stick it in stir it around… and don't worry about it! enjoy your time outdoors, screw cost and the PITA that is CR123 batteries… I HAVE WORK ON MONDAY! :)

another thing with filters, is they can grow bacteria internally.. something to think about, although returning from a trip and running a little bleach will kill them off…

glad to hear your son is ok BTW… hope this doesn't discourage him from throwin' that pack back on…

Hi Mike,

Can you share where this trip was and what water source(s) was used? Additional details might be helpful to others in similar settings.

Glad to know your son's recovering and all will be back to normal. The problem with the diagnosis is it's not definitive and even if it's known to be viral, whether it came from the water or from some other source (hand-to-mouth or food). Did anybody else in his group become ill?

Viral contamination implies human waste contamination, which can be difficult to anticipate. The higher and more remote I go the less I'm concerned with it. The risk is never zero but IMHO it's a controllable one. But, if the source is suspect, a two-step treatment becomes attractive, whether it's prefilter plus UV or mechanical filter plus chemical (in that sequence).

The Hiker filter cartridge doesn't require replacement until flow is badly restricted or the fabric is somehow damaged. The carbon inside is for organics adsorbtion and not part of the primary goal of blocking bacteria and cysts. It wouldn't have had a role here.

Cheers,

Rick

"2) Do filter users worry about viruses?" Yes, and more after these stories.

"5) What would you do if you found yourself in a similar situation? (I told him I would have ditched the pack for the walk back). "
Carry rehydration stuff (pedialyte, gatorade powder). Try to avoid dehydration.
Carry peptobismol, helps with diarrhea.
I might ditch stuff, but keep whatever is needed to stay hydrated, dry and warm (tent, sleeping bag, rain parka).

This is a reason to carry a bit more than minimum gear; in this kind of situation you may need more to stay warm than normally.

Klear Water is available again. Get yourself a 3 to 6 liter collabsible canteen (3-4oz), strain water with a coffee filter to get the bugs and sticks out and then treat it over night with a single dose of Klear Water. In the morning, no viruses or bacteria!

You can also treat a single liter in 15min but then your Klear Water does not last as long.

It really depends on the water source as well. If you are taking water from a snow melt lake in the Sierra's above 10000 ft then you probably don't need anything but the coffee filter.

Who is selling it at this time?

Some people have gotten sick from their companions not
washing hands, doing dishes well, etc. and blamed it on the
water. One fellow insisted he got Giardia from a giant
glacial fed river. This would be statistically impossible
as one has to ingest several cysts to get sick.

Some water filters include iodine and charcoal to remove
things the mechanical filters can't get.

One could try SODIS in addition to the filter too.

Glenn, I received 32 oz bottles of Klear Water directly from Xinix by emailing them at dti@san.rr.com

They mailed me 3 32oz bottles and I mailed them a check for the amount + postage after I received the product.

There is an earlier thread which details this but, in that same thread Sam Haroldson from BPL says they will soon be stocking this again (if not already doing so).

Forum Index » Food, Hydration, and Nutrition » Klearwater substitute (Started by Steven Hanlon on April 23rd, 2009)

Laurence,

Thanks,

I will try contacting them tomorrow.

Glenn

I just spoke with them on the phone. (They have numbers & emails posted on http://www.klearwater.com). The rep said that the military operations in Afghanistan have been absorbing this as fast as the Swedish manufacturer can make and ship it. So the Klearwater owners are having difficulty keeping stock in California, and haven't been able to supply the retailers like BPL and the others listed on their site. But they do have some, and can mail a few bottles (not whole cases) to customers who email them at the addresses listed on their site. Hope this helps!

Laurence, did you mean 32 ml bottles when you wrote 32 oz? The Klearwater bottles I got from BPL when it was in stock were labelled 32 ml (1 oz), in volume.

I have also gone through the same problem previously i was using katdyne water filter but i think Refrigerator water filter are good as compare to that.

Mike

Sorry to hear about your intestinal adventure.

One thing to keep in mind is that no system to date is perfect (ie no system sterilizes the water – just tries to remove as many bugs aspossible) The EPA standards for public drinking water are to reduce water borne illness to less than 1:10,000 – which means on any given day thousands of people (in US) are experiencing what you did, just fromdrinking tap water.

Having said that, a 2 step water cleaning system is much more effective than any single step system.

Most references will advise using a mechanical filter FIRST and then either chemical or UV second.

The reason for filtration first is to remove the larger particles which act like "bug magnets" the large particles can also shield the bugs from UV rays or chemical treatments (UV and Chemicals are far less effective in cloudy water)

But even with meticulous treatment – bad bugs can still sneak through. With some viruses a load of only 1 SINGLE virus particle is enough to cause illness – so the drop of water that remained on the lid of your drinking bottle and didn't get chemically treated is a veritable minefield of illness. Furthermore ALL surface water in USA (even in pristine areas) is contaminated with Entero Virus – and many pristine areas have viral loads greater than EPA approved levels.

So whenever you drink, you're rolling the dice.

My treatment plan:

1) Filter water if cloudy
2) Steripen (backup is Micropur tablet)
3) I always carry a few pills of anti nausea meds (compazine or zofran – non sedating) so usually I can keep fluids down in case of an attack. (peptobismal already mentioned is good too – actually functions as a good preventative agent, but no good once you are already vomiting)
4) You can make an effective rehydration solution by adding just a couple of teaspoons of sugar and a pinch of salt to a pint of water. Or cut Gatorade 50/50 with water.

Hope this doesn't keep you off the trails

doug

> With some viruses a load of only 1 SINGLE virus particle is enough to cause illness

In my experience this is most unlikely. The human race would be dead if this was true. Can you supply the name of such a virus and a peer-reviewed paper to support the claim?

Cheers

"Furthermore ALL surface water in USA (even in pristine areas) is contaminated with Entero Virus – and many pristine areas have viral loads greater than EPA approved levels."

Can you supply documentation to support this assertion?

Sawyer makes a 0.02 micron filter which they claim will remove viruses. I'm seriously considering it. It's a little pricey, but no batteries to replace or electronics to fail.

Up 'til now, I use a two step process. I treat the water with the EPA recommended dosage of chlorine bleach which kills viruses in about half an hour. I then filter with a 1 micron filter to remove any bacteria or protozoa & cysts, followed by a charcoal filter that gets rid of the chlorine and many organic chemicals.

Sounds involved, but the filter system is light (8oz. total) and gravity powered so it takes very little of my time. The water is always great tasting.

Roger, Tom

Thanks for checking up on the facts.
Rather than go through a tedious list of paper references let me refer you to the Textbook of Wilderness Medicine by Paul Auerbach 4th ED. The chapter on field water disinfection is an excellent resource for those with further interest on the subject and contain numerous references to support the claims.

With regards to infection by a single viral organism a specific virus was not implicated (there are over 100 different kinds known to be excreted in human waste alone) The info is available in Textbook of Wilderness Medicine – this specific number was obtained from statistical models for determining risk. Obviously a controlled, randomized double blinded study would raise some ethical eyebrows:-)
I should clarify – a single organism can cause disease in a SUSCEPTIBLE indivdual. Fortunately the majority of us have fully functioning immmune systems that protect us from such harbingers of disease thus preventing global extermination. And obviously many of these bugs (viral and bacterial) live quite happily on a daily basis in our colons with no ill effects. It's just when they get to the wrong place at the wrong time that gastrointestinal pandomonium may result.

With regards to contamination of surface water (even in pristine areas) there are numerous papers to support this claim. Obviously not all pristine water can be tested and we run into a kind of Heisenberg Observer effect – can water really be pristine and uncontaminated once someone has waded around in it collecting water samples?

And again my point is not to scare people (I frequently drink untreated surface water) – I've been lucky so far. But just to point out that the POTENTIAL for illness lies everywhere – fortunately we have evolved a very nifty immune system that allows us to stay one step ahead……so far.

cheers

doug

I've had PUR/Katadyn Hiker filters fail when forced to use cloudy water.

Field servicable filters with ceramic cores tend to be heavier but at least you can revive the filter when needed. I've used them but don't care to carry the weight.

I think the newer Hiker filters have a membrane that surrounds the filter that supposedly can be cleaned. But it is still an unservicable filter at the core.

I now use the MSR Hyperflow when I carry a filter. Reasons: lighter weight, you can test the filter, the Hyperflow can be backflushed, and replacement filters are small and light enough to carry when you think it necessary.

Personally, I elect the steripen instead of filter for most trips.
Regardless I always carry chemical backup.

First off, I'm sorry your son had such a bad experience. It's never fun to be miles from home and having to rely upon yourself to obtain medical attention. I'm lucky to have never had such an experience. It's only a matter of time I suppose.

I use the Katadyn Hiker Pro for my filtering needs. Prior to that I was using the Katadyn Mini. I found the Mini to be too slow for my personal needs.

I was on a week trip in the Chugach State Park with the mini when I dropped and broke the ceramic filter. It was myself and my brother, and our only filter. Lucky for us, we each brought an extra fuel tank which we used to boil our water. We had silt issues from the glaciers… but we never got sick.

Now that I use the Hiker Pro, I replace my filter about every 6 months depending on usage. I find that I maintain a good output flow, and I don't find myself worrying about whether or not my filter is functioning properly. It's one less thing to worry about. I do not carry a backup filter system. I can use my bandana to get most of the junk out, and by boiling my water I can survive long enough to get back to civilization if I have a main filter failure situation.

Hi Douglas

(Goes into science-mode)

> a single organism can cause disease in a SUSCEPTIBLE indivdual.
But that is really begging the question and of no real meaning. In effect it is defining the individual rather than assessing the threat from the virus. It means nothing.

As noted "Fortunately the majority of us have fully functioning immmune systems", but I would add that even the minority who have compromised immune systems are still extremely unlikely to ever suffer that badly from a single organism. We know this from the real world, where people drink mildly contaminated water all the time and show no effects.

> this specific number was obtained from statistical models for determining risk.
Obviously enough, but that alone does not convey any meaning. It is always possible to extrapolate from the risk factors for concentrations of one million and one thousand viral particles per glass of water down to one particle per glass of water: that is simple maths.

But without knowing what the risk factors are for the *average* member of the population (rather than a hyper-susceptible one) we still have no useful information. If the risk at the one particle level turns out to be 10% for a person with absolutely no functioning immune system, what is it for a person with an average immune system? I don't know, but I suggest it is going to be lower by something like a million-fold.

> fortunately we have evolved a very nifty immune system that allows us to stay one step ahead
Yup, just as you say. It's why the human race survives. I think this 'nifty immune system' probably applies to most of the BPL readers too. Aren't we lucky!

I haven't got a copy of the book you mention, but I do have a more than passing (professional) experience with applied statistics. Tricky stuff at times, with huge potential for misinterpretation. The legal system gets into life-threatening confusion over DNA statistics all the time.

Cheers

I on the other hand DO have a copy of Auerbach, and I will check it when I get home… but that ain't what I remember. One viral particle? That had better be one hell of a mutant strain of Marburg or something. :o)

IIRC the VERY most virulant viral strains have an ID50 (a dose that will cause disease in 50% of people) on the order of 10 particles. But then, I didn't really study the outliers. Maybe the Hanta/superflu hybrid is out there…

And in fact I had thought there had been several surveys of back-country streams in the U.S. West that found incredibly low viral loads. (Though admittedly I was reading about them in secondary sources.) Nonetheless, I'd like that reference to the enteric viruses infesting the U.S., too. Maybe I can learn me somethin'.

Thanks Mike. I guess I'll stick with my 1 micron filter and chlorine pre-treatment.

"And in fact I had thought there had been several surveys of back-country streams in the U.S. West that found incredibly low viral loads."

I think a fair number of us would be offering supporting, if anecdotal, evidence of heavy viral loads in western streams if that were the case.

Hi Roger

While I agree that a single organism causing illness in a SUSCEPTIBLE individual may not have implication for the majority of the population, I'm not sure it means nothing.

It does serve to highlight the scope of the issue: On one end of the scale a single organism could cause illness in a susceptible person and on the other end of the scale there are some who would be able to drink gallons of highly contaminated water with no ill effect whatsoever

Furtermore, we can't simply quantify the risk of acquiring a water borne (or any) illness by solely detrming the Infectious Dose of a pathogen. While this may have some statistical utility, the bigger question is how does this relate to You and your immune system on a given day under given environmental conditions? Is your immunity average? And, what is average immunity? We can't determine the true risk without bringing your individual immune variables into the equation:
How old are you? Any comorbid disease / Diabetes ? HIV? Are you on immune supressing medication? Have you had a recent illness? Are you heat stressed? malnourished? Dehydrated? Exhausted? etc etc and therein lies the "susceptible" It's a fundamental part of the problem.

So we have to look at both the pathogenicity of the organism and the individual risk factors or susceptibilities of the individual to start determining the risk of aquiring the illness. And even these are probably just the tip of the iceberg – there are undoubtedly myriad other variables that play into the equation.

Back to the original point – yes, it is unlikely that a single organism is going to cause illness, but it is more likely in some than in others.

So, next time you take a nice long cool drink from a pristine glacial stream, "you've got to ask yourself one question: do I feel lucky?…"

cheers

doug