Bottled Water?

“Water is life's mater and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water.”-Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (Hungarian Biochemist, 1937 Nobel Prize for Medicine)

When creating food storage, the 800-pound gorilla is not the 800 lbs of wheat. That is fairly easy to buy and maintain. The real difficulty is the 800+ pounds of water you’ll need. The bare minimum amount of water for survival is one quart or liter per day. This is clean drinking water and does not include teeth brushing, washing, toilet flushing, etc. Many sites recommend 2 quarts per day per person. FEMA recommends a gallon a day per person – rightly assuming that most of us are not used to strict water rationing.

Assume a family of 4 and FEMA guidelines – so 4 gallons a day for the family. A one week supply, 28 gallons, would weigh 28 * 8.35 lbs = 234 lbs. A water supply for one month is just over 1000 lbs.

How can you store this much water? A friend of ours had a clever idea. Just like the song, “99 bottles of beer on the wall”, the wall of their garage was filled with 2-liter soda bottles that had been emptied, cleaned and filled with water. The plastic in these bottles is extremely durable, unlike gallon milk jugs that start to degrade and leak within a year. Keep the bottle out of direct sunlight and discourage bacteria growth by adding a few drops of bleach; 2-3 drops per liter so 4-6 drops in a soda bottle.

Another obvious solution is buying bottled water. But you’re actually better off saving tap water as described above. Bottled water costs four times as much as gasoline and is just as safe as spinach, hamburger, peanut butter, and other foods “regulated” by the FDA. There has been safely recalls of bottled water in the past. Your local drinking water is frequently tested and heavily regulated by stake and federal regulations.

Bottom Line

Here are some resources for more information on water storage.
http://www.theepicenter.com/tow02236.html
http://www.nationalterroralert.com/safewater/
http://www.bt.cdc.gov/disasters/earthquakes/food.asp
http://chemistry.about.com/b/2010/01/27/does-tap-water-go-bad.htm
http://chemistry.about.com/b/2010/01/25/does-bottled-water-go-bad.htm