jrbaja
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Baja Water
It was brought up by someone about buying a water purification system for one of the communities in south Baja.
Interestingly enough, water was one of our main topics of conversation down there as there are 530 something GPM coming out of a cliff in this region.
Now, when I was first down there, I bought purified water thinking I should. But, tasting the purified stuff and tasting the natural spring water
had me pretty much convinced. The guys working for me all drank it out of the hose so I became a convert. And it's good sweet water.
The last funeral I saw in this community was for a lady who was 102 I believe. Before that, it was the same ladies kids who made the procession, one
late 70's the other in his 80's.
All of these people were getting around by foot just prior to their departures. And getting around in this community is work!
These folks have grown up there and they are Rancheros. They are basically all healthy and definitely happy. They all seem to think the water has a
part in this although not the whole picture by any means.
I wonder what they would do if some foreigner said that they should change/purify their water with whatever method before drinking it when they have
been trying to convince me why I should be drinking it the way it is?
There are also gringos coming up from Los Barriles that are aquaintances of the person that wanted to "purify the water"who drive up just to get the
good spring water. I guess that they aren't telling everyone on purpose!
I also wonder what this community would do with 2 school buses but this is about the water. Yum!!
San Antonio and El Triunfo on the other hand need purification badly. Arsenic and mercury are all a part of the problems in those towns because of
the mining and natural deposits but spending a lot of time researching what I am doing, where I am at, I haven't had time to delve into these issues
that don't apply to my immediate community.
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MrBillM
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Agua Dulce
Unfortunately, Pure Spring water is not available in the vast majority of inhabited areas in Baja. It simply doesn't make sense to gamble on water of
unsure purity in those areas.
It's not so much that it may shorten your life, but that it will put you in a condition where you'll WISH you were dead. Having been in that state
ONCE in my life, I have no desire for a return engagement.
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Mike Humfreville
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Recent studies I have been told about
actually say it's bad to drink exclusively RO'd water. The problem is caused by water that contains no vitamins or minerals. When you drink only
"purified" (or RO'd) water your body doesn't get the minerals it needs and thus replaces them with minerals already stored in the body, e.g., bone
mass, teeth, etc.
While I don't have conclusive evidence that this is true, it does make sense.
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rpleger
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We shower and brush our teeth with local water but we buy purified water to drink and cook with. (Muleg
Richard on the Hill
*ABROAD*, adj. At war with savages and idiots. To be a Frenchman abroad is to
be miserable; to be an American abroad is to make others miserable.
-- Ambrose Bierce, _The Enlarged Devil\'s Dictionary_
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Mexray
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Don't forget the air...
...the villages out, away from any industrial areas have, as a rule, much purer air to breathe. Up here in California Norte, the stuff we have to
breathe must certainly be shaving a few good years off our lives!
I can ALWAYS feel the difference after we have camped out on the beach in Baja and are able to breathe some air that's got far fewer inpurities...even
the dust tastes better down there!
According to my clock...anytime is \'BAJA TIME\' & as Jimmy Buffett says,
\"It doesn\'t use numbers or moving hands It always just says now...\"
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Pescador
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Like a lot of other threads, this one is subject to pure theory and conjecture. Most of the purified water in baja is simply water that is run
through a filter. I have seen a lot of the plants and only a couple actually had anything close to Reverse Osmosis. Reverse Osmosis is a pressure
filtration where water is pressure forced through a microscopic membrane. If the holes are small enough, most of the nastys like like giardia,
cryptosporidium, and larger viruses, would be filtered out. One plant in Santa Rosalia has a filter but it only goes to 2.5 Microns so most of the
stuff comes through anyway. I have only seen one plant that actually used ultraviolet to disinfect after filtration. So People are paying for
filtered water that may or may not have been disinfected. So if you want to be really sure that you are not getting any bugs, you want to see what is
done for disinfection. If not add a few drops of clorine and as long as it is in the water for a few hours, it should kill anything that you need to
worry about. In the US there are standards developed by the EPA and the State Department of health that monitor standards for filtration plants, and
not only do they have to show that there is no immediate hazard to drinking the water, but new standards require you to show you will not have any
adverse effects from drinking a gallon a day for 25 years. I doubt that the standards are quite at that level in Mexico
Now, JR's spring is doing the same thing. The water enters the aquifer somewhere up in the mountains and the gravel and sediment filters the water
when it settles through. That is great if it does not encounter any of the bad stuff like aresenic and lead in the soil it comes through. So if it
is not polluted on the way through, you get good water coming out of the spring. Course, everything "upstream' gets dissolved.
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rpleger
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Never got sick from drinking local produced purefied water.
Richard on the Hill
*ABROAD*, adj. At war with savages and idiots. To be a Frenchman abroad is to
be miserable; to be an American abroad is to make others miserable.
-- Ambrose Bierce, _The Enlarged Devil\'s Dictionary_
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jrbaja
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Me neither
But, if you tried some Monarka and then tried some spring water, you would see that water actually does have a "flavor". Good one too.
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Bruce R Leech
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Mood: A lot cooler than Mulege
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Both of our plants in Mulege are R.O. and very good quality. especially super aqua 2000.
Bruce R Leech
Ensenada
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MrBillM
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Agree with Bruce
I've been buying my water in San Felipe from the same plant for 23 years and have never gotten sick from it. They advertise Reverse Osmosis and have
dated inspection stickers from the Mexican Government posted at the location. Good enough for me.
Granted, Pure Spring water is fine when available. I have a friend in Hemet who is so obsessive about Spring Water that he drives up to one of two
Springs in the mountains each week to fill his water containers, sometimes standing in line for extended periods. I guess I'll have to wait to see if
he outlives me.
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Sharksbaja
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Viruses and bacteria
will all pass through a 2.5 micron filter. Anything larger than .03 micro will not be 99.999 efficient in removing ALL living biological hazards.
RO does remove valuable minerals. Desalinated water retaines a high volume of dissolved minerals. Distilled water reguires copious amounts of energy.
Ozone and radiation are proven controls but are extremely expensive commercially.
Well water and or spring water have the best taste and are typically very pure at there source. They may contain heavy metals in large amounts
however. Some mineraals like arsenic are not exteremely hard to remove.
Carbon block filters are my first choice for most volume limited applications but these may be marginal with certain virusus.
Have you seen the air-water extractors?
Water composition should always be assayed for minerals and tested for bio. prior to be concidered "potable"
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bajalou
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I just drink the San Felipe water???
No Bad Days
\"Never argue with an idiot. People watching may not be able to tell the difference\"
\"The trouble with doing nothing is - how do I know when I\'m done?\"
Nomad Baja Interactive map
And in the San Felipe area - check out Valle Chico area |
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