Stabilized Oxygen

[desertengineer1]

It's essentially quackary.  There's no such thing as "stablized" oxygen.  It's either O2 or not O2.  Even if you were to bubble 100% O2 through the water, it would diffuse out.  Sustained exposure would probably start to break down the bladder polymer anyway.

I would just clean and dry it per the cleaning instructions and keep a couple of water bottles handy.

[raivo]

The topic of this thread has nothing to do with what any of you are talking about.  I asked if anyone had used a particular product, not about the need or non-need of it.

Nobody's used it because we don't fill our camel-backs until we actually need to...

[Spike]

^ If you have not yet deployed to Iraqistan, I can see where you are coming from. 

Me.....I can see purposes of letting water sit until ready for use.

I can even think of a few in CAP, and in life in general.  We all take fresh and clean water for granted.  What would happen when the water turns off, and you finish drinking what was left in your toilet tank??

Look on-line for articles about pipes freezing for days, homes cutoff from everything and emergency assistance unable to get to everyone.

In CAP we only have to go back 5 years to Katrina to see what happens when water is unavailable.  We had to take our own water in, along with most other responders.  Look at Haiti if you need something more recent.   

[Major Lord]

When I saw the post about "Stabilized Oxygen" I thought the point was that someone was trying to sterilize water with Ozone or Hydrogen Peroxide. It turns out, its much, much, worse than that. The Holistic Medicine wack-wacks are trying to foist their liquid snake oil as "containing electrolytes of oxygen" and that disease is often caused by "oxygen deprivation" which can be miraculously cured by this secret formula that has double secret levels of free oxygen in it that we absorb by.....drinking? Now I admit that Organic Chem made me cry and scream like a little girl, but this is such a patent crock of stuff that its hard to believe that the people who sell it have not been nabbed by the FDA for false marketing claims...oh wait, never mind, they have!  I think its great that you want to have a go-bag so you can deploy on 5 seconds notice ( hey,  whole generations grew up watching "Red Dawn" so I totally get it) but if you think you need to deploy so fast that you can't take care of a basic need like water, its time to take a deep breath before running out the door.

Major Lord

[raivo]

^ If you have not yet deployed to Iraqistan, I can see where you are coming from. 

Me.....I can see purposes of letting water sit until ready for use.

I can even think of a few in CAP, and in life in general.  We all take fresh and clean water for granted.  What would happen when the water turns off, and you finish drinking what was left in your toilet tank??

Look on-line for articles about pipes freezing for days, homes cutoff from everything and emergency assistance unable to get to everyone.

In CAP we only have to go back 5 years to Katrina to see what happens when water is unavailable.  We had to take our own water in, along with most other responders.  Look at Haiti if you need something more recent.

This is true, but the original post was in the context of ES missions... there's no point in keeping your camel-back filled as part of your ES mission preparation - it takes what, 20 seconds to fill it?

On the subject of emergency water supplies, well, there's better things to store it in than camel-backs.

[♠SARKID♠]

Alright, I think its only polite that I respond in my own thread.

When I saw the post about "Stabilized Oxygen" I thought the point was that someone was trying to sterilize water with Ozone or Hydrogen Peroxide. It turns out, its much, much, worse than that. The Holistic Medicine wack-wacks are trying to foist their liquid snake oil as "containing electrolytes of oxygen" and that disease is often caused by "oxygen deprivation" which can be miraculously cured by this secret formula that has double secret levels of free oxygen in it that we absorb by.....drinking? Now I admit that Organic Chem made me cry and scream like a little girl, but this is such a patent crock of stuff that its hard to believe that the people who sell it have not been nabbed by the FDA for false marketing claims...oh wait, never mind, they have!

That's pretty much what I had figured.  It seemed pretty sketchy and I just wanted to get feedback from elsewhere before I ruled it out.

As for purifying in the field, I do truly think its appropriate to have some form of purifier in my gear.  If I run out of water in the field (and I have) and other sources aren't available (see Smithsonia's last post) I want a way to be able to use what water is available to keep hydrated.  Maybe its the Boy Scout in my, but I like to be prepared.  If I end up never needing it, its only my loss.

[Dracosbane]

I thought that's what those little purifying tablets, hand pump filters, and fire were for.  There are a myriad of ways to purify water that work and are easily transportable. 

Also, the only time I have ever needed to purify water was on a bivouac, we'd planned for it, and had a filter to get clean water for everyone.  Of course, I also could have just tilted my head up and drank from the sky as it fell, it was raining so hard on that particular bivouac.

[JoeTomasone]

In Florida, the dubious "benefit" of life is that we keep hurricane supplies on hand - food, water, etc, all in containers, ready to be loaded into the vehicle to bug out.   

If I have a mission and need water, I simply grab some water from the HurrKit and fill my camelback.   After the mission, I stop by the store and replenish what was used.

After hurricane season, the kit gets opened and anything that has an expiration date in the next 12 months gets put in the cupboard and eaten -- or tossed into a pack for a SAREX or other training, or maybe a UDF mission. 

For purposes of purifying water in the field, I have an ultraviolet purifier that apparently works well.

[Fuzzy]

That's pretty much what I had figured.  It seemed pretty sketchy and I just wanted to get feedback from elsewhere before I ruled it out.

As for purifying in the field, I do truly think its appropriate to have some form of purifier in my gear.  If I run out of water in the field (and I have) and other sources aren't available (see Smithsonia's last post) I want a way to be able to use what water is available to keep hydrated.  Maybe its the Boy Scout in my, but I like to be prepared.  If I end up never needing it, its only my loss.

Wolverines!

When I was in the boy scouts we just boiled the water dude. Sometimes we used these too.


http://www.campmor.com/katadyn-micropur-purification-tablets.shtml?source=PLA&cm_mmc=PLA-_-Google%20Product%20Listing%20Ads%20-%20Experiment%2007-_-Primary-_-

I think you might be overthinking it.

[Al Sayre]

Depending on where you are getting your water, you can purify it using bleach.  A gallon should last you several years.  For example, if you have water standing unused in a tank for a long time (pretty nasty...), 1 teaspoon of bleach will purify 5 gallons, 1 pint of bleach for 1000 gal's of water.  That means you can purify 8000 gallons of pretty nasty water with 1 gallon of bleach.  It may not taste great, but it will keep you alive, and it's really cheap.  Growing up in FL, it was pretty standard when a hurricane was coming to fill up every container available and put a few drops of bleach in to kill any gag-nasties, so I always have at least 1 gallon on hand at the house.  You can find quite a few articles from reputable sources on purifying water with bleach on the interweb thingy...

[Major Lord]

I know your thread has drifted pretty far off course ( as they tend to do) but, just in case someone read these posts and considered adding chlorine bleach to their Camel Back, let me assure you this is a really bad idea. Filter and sterilize your water before you add it to the Camel Back. Since we are in a discussion of water, I also suggest that you don't accept someones word that water is fit to drink. I drank bad water in the Hurricane Katrina AO that was supposedly purified, and picked up a parasitic and bacterial infection that migrated to a more serious disease that will eventually kill me  ( unless an angry CAP Talker kills me first, or I get hit by a truck) So you are taking your life in your hands when you drink water in a disaster area, and the only one finally responsible for your safety is you.

Major Lord

[Spike]

I drank bad water in the Hurricane Katrina AO that was supposedly purified, and picked up a parasitic and bacterial infection that migrated to a more serious disease that will eventually kill me

??  Can you name the disease, the parasite that caused the disease or how it will kill you?  If you don't want to do it here, please PM me.  I have never heard of such a thing. 

[Gunner C]

Don't get out much? 

In tropical areas there's horrible bad things that you can catch.  I've had three friends who caught stuff in tropical areas that will kill them eventually (if it hasn't already).  Parasites tend to attach themselves in bad places in the body like the liver.  For some of these, there's a cure, but the cure is as bad as the disease, or worse.  I had a beef tape worm once.  Before they gave me the cure, it had to be ok'd by a panel of military doctors at the local hospital.  When they gave me the prescription (one pill), the doctor told me to get a glass of water and sit down before taking it.  It made the room spin around and made me feel like I was going to die.  Within an hour, the critter was dead.

I had another friend who went to some "superstupid" ranger school in Venezuela.  He was there for at least two months.  He was about 6'2" and built like he was in the NFL.  He came back about 6 months later after several months in the hospital.  He weight less than half his former weight and was being processed out of the army.  He thought that he was going to make it, but the next couple of months would tell.  He got some sort of parasite from drinking swamp water.

I never assume that water is pure.

[Major Lord]

It started out with a regular old Gerardia infection, a parasitic beastie. A couple of rather nasty bacterial opportunistic diseases jumped in to make it more complicated. At first the Doc's thought I had diverticulitis, and did not aggressively treat the disease until I started bleeding to death. Several weeks of hospitalization and lots of IV antibiotics and antiparasitics brought it under control, but my body was pretty pissed off about the whole thing and decided to counter attack with some form of auto immune disease, which is a lot like Crone's disease. It seems the disease is always finding  new ways to amuse me.( Fever, bodyaches, liver inflammation, and things we won't talk about in polite company) There is no cure for this, only treatment for symptoms. The disease will eventually kill me, but with any luck, not for a little while.

As it happens, I got off pretty light for a parasitic infection. Lots of water-borne diseases kill people by the gazillions.

Major Lord