Suitability of pool water for personal ingestion

[pcmacd]

BORAX: This looks like an excellent way to raise PH.

WallyMart, Costco and Target had none. I finally found it at Ralph's and Stater Brothers for about $4 for a 76 oz box here in the People's Socialist Republik of Southern Kalifornia [henceforth: PSRSK.] This is still waaaaay cheaper than the ~40# (??) bucket of soda ash I paid about $80 for at Leslie's five or so years back; waaay too many pounds, waaay too $$, and waaay too nasty on the TA levels.

Thus, a few questions, _'sil vous plait_ :

I look at my 16K gallon pool as a source of drinking water should the grid, northern or Colorado River aqueducts, or WTW-evah ever go down here in the PSRSK, depriving us of water in this area that is a total desert by nature.

As is, after a complete analysis, I expect I could drink / cook / etc. with my pool water for a very long time, as long as I added a modest amount of chlorine to anything that was not boiled first [mebe I should get the CYA down below 100 ppm...]

Here are the QUESTIONs:

What effects do

---borax

---CYA

have on the suitability of pool water for personal ingestion over a period of perhaps a year?

Methinks the rest of the factors outside of FC do no matter(?)

tanks

pc

RECENT ANALYSIS STATS:

FC: 16 (let's not overdo it next time, just got the T-100 kit!)
PH: 7.3 to 7.5
TA: ~130 on average (tap water is 120 to 190 on any particular day)
CH: 300 to 400
CYA: 100

"Nice weather here, but the lack of _even basic_ intelligence in Sacramental is disturbing." :grrrr:

 

[Nina Li]

Re: So you want to add borates to your pool--Why and How

Wow...pcmacd..what a fabulous idea..especially here in Florida with that storm (Debby -that won't LEAVE) to be able to use that water for cooking, maybe even drinking (if the power goes out and my well-pump goes off). Thank you...geez..why didn't I think of that? I filled some gallons with water...ha..who needs that?!

 

[JasonLion]

This has come up several times before, with somewhat ambiguous results. See for example this topic.

 

[chem geek]

And this topic as well. If you have a hot water heater, you should use that for drinking water first, assuming you don't have emergency bottles of water already available. Just shut off it's inputs (and gas, of course) in case the mains are contaminated. That should give you at least 50 gallons of fresh known good water.

 

[Bloomfield]

My cats drink the pool water. It doesn't bother them.

 

[chem geek]

If you don't have any other water source, then drinking pool water is better than not drinking any water at all. The point was that if you have a better source of water to drink, such as a from a hot water heater, then you should use that first. It's not that pool water will be toxic and kill you, but rather that it isn't as good a water source as others because it is generally high in salt and possibly somewhat higher than drinking water in disinfection by-products (and borates, if you've added those).

 

[pcmacd]

Well, I used to use bleach as my chlorinator, and after a couple of years, one can, w/o a doubt, taste the sodium in the water!

I expect that _salty_ water is better than none, but why not do better?