[pct-l] Water Treatment

[Eric Lee]

Eugene wrote:
>
I treat with bleach.  I've never tasted it.  I've brought some bleached
water home and had family members drink it, not knowing that it was from a
mountain creek, and said it tasted delicious.
>

If you and your family can't detect the chorine in the water then you're
probably not using enough to do a reliable job of sterilization and you've
just been drinking water that was relatively clean in the first place.  Or,
I dunno, maybe you have a magic chlorine-resistant nose or something, in
which case congratulations, carry on!  

But seriously, in order to create an environment with bleach that reliably
kills pathogens in a short amount of time you *have* to have a certain
concentration of chlorine in the water, and that concentration is going to
be noticeable to most people.  Objectionable?  Well, that's a subjective
term, but detectable, yes.  If it's not detectable then you're probably
using the bleach as more of a placebo than a real purifying agent.

Eric