Having too much of a good thing can be especially true when it comes to the effect of floods on our drinking water. We’ve previously reported on the effects of droughts, floods and bushfires. Droughts and bushfires create massive amounts of ash and phosphorous-rich material which settles into catchment areas, along with contaminants such as fire retardants. Later, when the rains eventually come, all of that is washed into our dams, initially causing problems for treatment plants having to deal with massive amounts of mud and silt clogging up equipment. Then the ash, phosphorous and other organic material becomes excellent fertilizer for algae and other pathogens. To make our water safe to drink in these circumstances, Drinking Water Service Providers (DWSPs) often have to add more chlorine than usual, and in some cases turn off water supplies temporarily, or issue boil water or do not drink alerts.
In times like these, it is especially prudent to use a personal water filtration system to ensure that the water is not just safe, but palatable as well. While we recommend always boiling water whenever a boiled water alert is issued even if you use a filter, a personal water filter system provides an extra level of protection if you don’t hear about the alert in good time, or miss it completely. Beside water for drinking, water should also be boiled in these circumstances for washing vegetables, cooking, making ice and brushing teeth. The rule of thumb is, if it’s going into the body either directly or indirectly, boil it first. Don’t forget doggo or puss’s drinking water too. For more information about making water safe to drink during boil water alerts, click here.
Call us today for a chat on (02) 8840 5177, and arrange for home delivery of your brand new water filtration system.
The floods on the east coast of Australia in March 2021 were reported as a one-in-fifty year event in many areas. This followed an unprecedented bushfire season from the year before, which had the potential to make the usual negative effects of a flooding event much worse.
https://pxhere.com/en/photo/953705
Sydney Water switched its desalination plant to standby as a contingency in case it had to ramp up production quickly. Meaning that in spite of all of that extra water, there was a possibility of running out of treated water due to the poor quality of the raw water coming in. Read more about it here.
Another factor was the current mouse plague affecting parts of regional Queensland and New South Wales. While some people reported that the floods appeared to have reduced the number of mice, others reported the opposite. Experts stated that mice would be driven to seek warm, dry places, so some people would find them in greater numbers than usual in houses, sheds and barns. Other wildlife such as spiders and snakes have also been witnessed behaving in the same manner, sometimes in alarming numbers. They also cautioned people who had seen reduced numbers of mice not to get too excited. In many cases the burrows would be deep enough to shield them from the rising waters, or they had just found higher ground temporarily. Once their previous homes had dried out, they were likely to return. Read more here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouse_plagues_in_Australia
For those living on collected rain water in mouse plague areas, there were warnings that water tanks could be contaminated. Some landowners reported finding lots of poisoned mice decomposing in their tanks.
Even without extreme weather events and mouse plagues, we need to consider where the runoff for our water tanks is coming from. Tank water isn’t necessarily clean or safe. Dubbo Regional Council’s environment and health officer, Simone Tenne, cautioned in the article above that:
“Rainwater tanks are perceived to be a clean source of drinking water, but they often have frogs in them, insects, a large amount of bird faeces which has come down off the roof.”
Rooves and gutters also collect leaves and twigs which may contain pesticides, or may have toxic elements themselves. Aerated pesticides and other air pollutants may have settled on our rooves as well. These may include heavy metals such as arsenic and lead, which is particularly applicable if you live near a city or a mining area.
A good water filter system such as an EZEK EZ – AQUA 3-stage Undersink/ Benchtop Water Filter System , or ALYA and Clean Pure 5-stage Reverse Osmosis system, is essential if you’re drinking tank water. These will get rid of most physical contaminants as well as heavy metals and bacteria. However, in the case of poisoned rodents finding their way into your tanks, we would not recommend drinking the water anyway, at least not without taking the extra step of disinfecting the water first.