Safety of drinking catchment water?

[Bob Orts]

Is Hawaii County required to make available the DOH and EPA Water Quality testing results? This would be their reqular testing reports on drinking water supplied by the County.

[momalina]

Water quality reports generally come with the water bill.

[Kelena]

And oh yeah -- I have no water bill.

[Scott_S]

Glen,

Are you sure about the 10 micron, I use a 1 micron and wouldn,t go any larger? Really should be .5 micron, from what I have been reading. The pressure drop across that kind of filter is just too high unless you just use it for a separate drinking faucet.

Scott

[Kelena]

Scott,

Just quoting from the article. I have no advice about which size filter to use. I guess my point is that, according to these people, a filter can take it out.

[Greta]

I did get very ill for about a month after my catchment (rental) was low. Fever every day.

[Timkona]

Is it possible that acid rain filling the catchments could affect teeth?

Someday the Politics of NO! will protest farm activities on Ag Land.

[Devany]

Anything is possible of course, but if you are worried, it would not be a huge cost to bring in drinking water and only use your catchment for showering etc.

Aloha au i Hawai`i,
devany

www.eastbaypotters.com
www.myhawaiianhome.blogspot.com

[ef9]

We(family of 4) do not drink from our catchment water unless it is boiled or used in cooking. We have a 20 micron sediment filter, 5 micron carbon block (carbon block is recommended over charcoal or granular) and then I have TWO UV filters in series for ultimate disinfection. Yet, we still do not drink from our catchment. I pick up water from outside of WalMart (that reverse osmosis) 5gallons for $1.25. I also keep three 5 gallon water from Home Depot (Menehune Water from Honolulu) in case of power outage and we need water, etc. I rotate those bottles to keep new stock. I go through roughly 10 gallons of drinking water a week.

The county water here on the island was ranked one of the cleanest in the nation (I remember the Tribune Herald article in the 80s or was it in the 90s). You don't hear of people getting sick from county water here in Hawaii. My gastroenerologist said it is common for people on catchment to get sick(gastro problems). I don't see much advantage of catchment to tell you the truth. My electric bill is a bit higher than the average Hilo house because of the electric water pump. And the maintenance is a bit expensive. I put in 12-16oz of bleach each Saturday. I also have a stainless steel mesh bag in my catchment tank (from the gutter down spout into the catchment tank) that I clean and inspect each Saturday. I also have stainless steel mesh screens in all of my gutter down spouts that I clean and inspect once a month. I clean inside of my tank once a year. It sucked when I got a lot of debris stuck in the intake of my water pump. I quickly had to build a cheap floating intake (my floating intake I designed was on display with Tricia Macomber and she still has it).

Then you have the filters that you need to replace (I tend to replace my filters once every 3 months). My question I was going to ask all of you is, how often do you replace your filters? What sizes do you have?

The acid rain keeps the pH level low (acidic) and the question was, how quickly would this deteroiate your teeth? You have to remember, a can of soda is probably 100x more acidic than the catchment tank with acid rain in it.

[Youser]

Holy Reverse Osmosis, Batman! That is some complicated process you go through EF, with your catchment and you don't even drink the stuff! We use a Walmart filter as the only defense against ghoulies in our water catchment tank. We change it once a month if we remember and have a Brita filter jug for drinking water which 2/3 of this family don't even bother with (if they get thirsty they drink out of the tap). Sometimes our filter is pretty black when we change it but touch wood, we have never been struck down by germy things in the water. We have tested it with the UH kit and it's fine. I do hope all your efforts to keep your water purified are worth it and you've taught me a lesson today - to at least pay attention and change the filters on time. Thank you.