Recently, I was given some Aquamira Water Purification Tablets to test. I was able to take them out on a day trip fishing in the Uinta Mountains of Utah. It was a good fishing, and we caught some nice tiger and brook trout from a couple of the lakes that we hiked to. The water in these high country lakes and streams fools a fair amount of people into thinking that because its so clear, cold, and refreshing that it is safe to drink. I knew this wasn’t the case, because as a teenager, one of my friends drank some water out of a stream up there and ended up being hospitalized with Giardia. Since then, I always treat my water.
Over time, I have been trying out different ways of treating my water. This includes drops, water filters, self-contained water bottle filters, straws, UV light treatment, a simple gravity filter, and now the Aquamira tablets. The instructions say to use one tablet for 750 ml, and all I had was a large empty Gatorade bottle that was one liter. So I figured I would rather not have a trip to the ER for explosive releases, and put in 2 tablets then waited the 30 minutes. The other reason that I did the higher concentration was that the water still had some floaters in it but was pretty clean as far as that goes. The instructions say to filter it out before treating it so I just upped the dosage and figured that I would have some change in the taste of the water.
Happily, the water was cold and refreshing after the 30 minute wait and neither my fishing buddy nor I could taste more than the slightest hint of the treatment in the water. Still better than tap water as far as I‘m concerned, and more important, neither of us has gotten sick. I was happy at the ease of use and the water still tasting good. I did check these tablets out and found that Aquamira has test results posted on their website. They are using chlorine dioxide as the chemical treatment, which has been around around since the 1940’s and is used in municipalities for water treatment.
I like these tablets, and they are easy to pack in my survival kits, and taste much better. So I think that I will start replacing my water treatment method in my emergency kits with the Aquamira tablets. They would also be great for ultra light backpacking. aquamira.com
– Rob