Purifying Water Low Tech Style

Walkerton, Ontario is a town (roughly 5000 population) about an hour's drive south of where I live. Several years ago, Walkerton became famous for having an E. coli contamination of their water system. I owned a store there then. Many of my employees in the store in my city had relatives in Walkerton. People that I was indirectly connected to became ill, and some even died. I am acutely aware of the importance of water.

This morning I read an account by an indirect acquaintance, @vectorshore describing his experience with water.

I witnessed the power outage in 2003 when some areas were without power for nine days. I had people call me (the telephone system is independent of the power grid) asking what to do. Fortunately, this happened during the summer, and most people have BBQs in my area, so food wasn't a problem. The radio stations also have independent power sources, so finding out the news meant going out to the car and listening to the radio. Since my family was living in the country, we had our own water pump and filtration system. I quickly topped up my water requirements by running an extension cord from the pump to my car and connecting it to a power converter. Being the type of person I am, I wondered what low-technology options are for filtering water. This knowledge isn't just for people living in less secure areas.

I quickly found this video that shows a method of filtering 300 litres of water per day.

This video is the follow-up answering questions the presenter received: