Reliable Water Filtration: A Necessity for Survival

There are many self-proclaimed “survivalists” throughout the blogosphere who lend all sorts of advice on how to prepare for a variety of scenarios. I personally feel that the most overlooked threat to one’s survival is lack of clean drinking water. As a “survivalist” myself, I tend to prioritize my needs by considering what might kill me first. Dehydration earns the number one spot on my list.

The Discovery Channel series, I Shouldn’t be Alive, provides great testimony to this as does countless other stories of individuals finding themselves fighting to stay alive in adverse conditions. Most of the episodes I have seen involve dehydration as the number one threat as opposed to guerillas, or gorillas. The average person can survive 30 days without food, some as long as 45 days. Without water you have about 72 hours; give or take depending on the circumstances. If you drink unfiltered water, you may stave off dehydration for a short time, but end up dying of disease or illness instead.

Any average Joe can manage to survive in the wilderness or in an urban crisis setting for three days with no knowledge of survival whatsoever. Lack of water could probably kill someone more quickly than a pandemic, civil war, wildlife, gang violence, or anything else.

With that said, I still can not help but laugh at those who stockpile water in their garage and home. The problem in doing so is that it requires a lot of space to store a significant amount of water. Also, it is impossible to move quickly, or move at all, while carrying so much water. I suppose they believe they have room to store enough water to outlast any crisis or that the best thing to do in any crisis is to stay home.

What happens when the stores run out of water? It has happened before. What happens when the city is too dangerous to make an attempt to acquire more water? This has also happened in the past.

I do not have any water in my garage but I do have a portable water filter. I also happen to know of a nearby river that I could float all the way out of the country without encountering any checkpoints or roadblocks. I would have all the water I need and where there is water there is wildlife, plant life, and thus there is an endless supply of clean, healthy, natural food as well.

There are many water purification solutions out there but I use MSR’s Miniworks EX water filter. It can filter 1 liter of water per minute supplying you with taste-free and safe drinking water. The Miniworks EX removes protozoa (including giardia), bacteria, some chemicals and many pesticides. It is field maintainable, just remove the ceramic/carbon filter and use the scrubbing pad to clean the filter. The filter cartridge can filter up to 2000 liters of water, I do not believe I can fit that much water in my garage or carry a tenth of that on my back. The entire filter weighs just one pound and measures about 7.5’’ x 2.75’’. Keep an extra filter cartridge handy, weighing less than a pound, and you now have 4000 liters of water which could be enough for one person for 2 years.

The Miniworks EX can fit on the standard 1 liter Nalgene bottle, or MSR’s Dromedary bags. I use mine with an inline adapter that connects the output directly to the drinking hose of my water bladder, this eliminates the chances of spilling liters of water I just worked to filter. Another outstanding point on the MSR Miniworks EX is that it filters water down to .2 microns. All other manufacturers’ filters that I know of only filter down to .3 microns. Best of all, it is made in U.S.A.

I take this filter with me on every trip, even if I only plan to spend the day at the river. I personally would feel comfortable drinking ditch water after I have filtered it with the Miniworks EX. It is an invaluable item for any household and a necessity for every backpacker and survivalist. Do not leave home without it!