Free Harvesting H2o by Nicholas Hyde Page A

effort not to squander your resources needlessly. However, in no way should you feel compelled to reduce your own personal consumption of fresh water! Quite the contrary; you should enjoy it all the more when you harvest it yourself and cease to spill so much of it down the drains. Properly supplied, you will not be able to drink your way into a personal drought, so by all means have those 8 glasses a day, and make all the homebrew you want. You may, however, want to think twice about washing your car with potable water every weekend.
    In ancient times, thousands of years before residential plumbing, people still had enough water to drink. If they could do it, you certainly can. Back then, they didn’t know about germs. Consequently, health problems ran rampant through societies and life expectancies were relatively short. These days, you can have the best of both worlds. You can enjoy the simple pleasure of harvesting drinking water from nature, and make it safe to drink, too. Since that is by far the most important step, let’s start there…
     

The Dangers of Drinking Wild Water
     
    Although fresh water supplies can be found almost anywhere there is land, it is estimated that around 90% of the earth’s surface water is contaminated and unsafe to drink as-is. Exactly how unsafe ranges from the presence of minor microorganisms which may cause a mild upset stomach to harboring dangerous bacteria or virus strains which will result in violent illness, disease, and even death.
    Before Louis Pasteur discovered germs in the mid 1800’s, it was common practice in many societies not to even consume water. Back in those days, people would drink beer, wine, or various forms of tea instead. Water from the surface of the earth was known to be risky and unsafe, although they didn’t know why. What they did know was that once water was processed into beverages, it was safe. So, that is what they drank. Fermented juices were typically diluted with water to create weak alcoholic beverages which could be consumed without making one too intoxicated to work. This is a practice that goes back to ancient times. The Hebrews of Biblical times would dilute wine with water, about three parts water to one part wine, for regular daily consumption with meals. That was enough alcohol to sanitize the water being consumed, for their purposes.
    Well-water is much safer than surface water as a general rule, but only once you know the well is safe. In the old days, the household servants would be the guinea pigs for newly dug wells. If they didn’t get sick, then the land owners would know it was safe to drink from, at least for a while. It is possible for a good well to become contaminated from surface water and go bad. Springs are known to be a reasonably safe bet for good drinking water, but only at the source, where the water first emerges from underground. After it has run along the surface for a while, it becomes contaminated. Likewise, rainwater is safe to drink before it comes into contact with anything. The process of vaporization purifies it, so when it reforms as a liquid it is about as pure as it gets (yes, even “acid rain”).
    Whenever you see a national disaster in a third world country reported on the news, one of the main concerns is a cholera outbreak. This happens because wastewater drainage systems become rerouted and find their way into drinking water supplies, contaminating them. It doesn’t usually happen right away, as the bacteria require time to colonize. In places like Zimbabwe, residents don’t have access to chemical treatments, such as chlorine, so it is easy for drinking water reservoirs to become spoiled. One small infection will eventually spread through the entire supply. After the Haiti earthquake in 2010, a severe cholera outbreak occurred one full year later. Cholera typically has about a 1% fatality rate.
    Roughly 4% of all human illness is attributed to waterborne disease, estimated to be responsible for