Purifying Water When Camping

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Richard Fields. In this video we are going to talk about how to purify water. One of the most surefire ways of course is to boil the water. If you decide to go this way you have got to make sure you go into a rolling boil. This will kill any and everything. The problem with this is it uses a lot of fuel and it is a lot of hassle and you do have to have the stove and equipment with you to do it. A better solution is to use a water filter system. The water filter system is all self contained and is the most convenient of all and it removes just everything that boiling will do. When you are using a water pump it is a really good idea to choose water that is not brackish or still. The clearest looking water is certainly going to be the best because these filters and pre-filters clog rather rapidly in brackish water and will require a lot of extra maintenance and cleaning. The one drawback to these systems is they can fail. In that event you should certainly have a backup with you which would be iodine tablets. They are available at any backpack store and they just require dropping a tablet into your unpurified water. They do require that you wait a certain amount of time before the water is available for drinking and that is how you purify water."