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'Very, very pink' tap water in Alberta town

citynews.ca

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Re: 'Very, very pink' tap water in Alberta town

#51

Post by hwillis »

carterehsmith wrote: post #34
refurb wrote: post #7

Not the end of the world. You can buy potassium permanganate tablets to purify drinking water.

>> You can buy potassium permanganate tablets to purify drinking water. Or drink your own piss, ala Bear Grylls. Healthy, and helps build character. I just think that these Albertans are just a bit too... spoiled I think?

Jeez, its not like they have to live with it from now on. The treatment facility made a mistake, one as harmless as putting food coloring in the water. As soon as there's new water in the system it'll run clear again. It's a fuckup, its inconvenient, and people may choose to use bottled water for a few days, but it doesn't mean that the government is made of tyrannical despots.

Re: 'Very, very pink' tap water in Alberta town

#53

Post by hwillis »

theophrastus wrote: post #27
enraged_camel wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>The commenter is explaining that potassium permanganate is harmless and usually used as a water purifier anyway. Harmless at what level? Because even the most harmless chemical substance will become harmful at high enough doses.

wikipedia: LD50 (median [lethal] dose) 1090 mg/kg (oral, rat)[1] (a gram per kilogram is fairly non-toxic. NaCl (table salt) LD50 is ~3gram/kg) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_permanganate

The "pink" amount appears to be in the range of 1-3mg/L. So the LD50 for an 80kg man would be ~30,000 liters orally. That would certainly be lethal. The rule of thumb for this stuff is also "If it's pink, it's safe to drink"[1], as in pink is the minimum concentration to ensure safety. The only reason to avoid higher concentrations is that it will stain heavily.

1: http://bluecollarprepping.blogspot.com/2014/08/potassium-per...

Re: 'Very, very pink' tap water in Alberta town

#54

Post by hwillis »

gpm wrote: post #12
refurb wrote: post #7

Not the end of the world. You can buy potassium permanganate tablets to purify drinking water.

What's the concentration of that vs the concentration here. Note that we also use chlorine to treat drinking water (e.g. on canoe trips), but you don't want to be drinking that unless it's very low concentration. A quick google search suggests that they are used to "improve water clarity" [0], so at a guess you don't use enough of it to turn the water pink. There's also the fact that they think it's concentrated enou…

The "pink" amount appears to be in the range of 1-3mg/L. So the LD50 for an 80kg man would be ~30,000 liters orally. That would certainly be lethal. The rule of thumb for this stuff is also "If it's pink, it's safe to drink"[1], as in pink is the minimum concentration to ensure safety. The only reason to avoid higher concentrations is that it will stain heavily.

1: http://bluecollarprepping.blogspot.com/2014/08/potassium-per...

Re: 'Very, very pink' tap water in Alberta town

#55

Post by wanderr »

asafira wrote: post #45
sunnyhacker wrote: post #44

I have always wanted to buy a countertop water distiller for home use. Guess I found another reason to justify the purchase =)

Piggybacking on this a bit: does anyone have a good recommendation for learning more about home water distillers and RO systems? Both for just certain faucets and maybe even the whole household? I know filtering all the water at home is likely overkill (in most places!), but I'm curious.

Under sink RO is not a big deal, you can buy a system for relatively cheap at Sams or probably Costco, and there's not much that you have to know, just change the prefilters when you are supposed to. Depending on the bladder and how much usage the RO system gets, it can take a while to fill a glass, 15-20s maybe? Filling a pot of water is infuriatingly slow.

RO systems waste water as that is how they work, expect your water usage to go up (how much depends on a lot of factors, for us it did not impact our water bill).

Whole house RO systems are probably a non-starter, keeping the water pressure up high enough seems like it would be very expensive.

Re: 'Very, very pink' tap water in Alberta town

#56

Post by darpa_escapee »

quietmonkey wrote: post #46
sdenton4 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically a textbook reason for having abortion services available for all...

Or just... education?

Desperate people are going to do desperate things, things that they know are bad or won't work. Especially if the only option that does work is taken away.

Re: 'Very, very pink' tap water in Alberta town

#57

Post by algesten »

mudil wrote: post #30

I love potassium permanganate. Growing up in Soviet Union, we used to add potassium permanganate to bath, supposedly to clean your skin. But I love it for its oxidizing properties. Mix potassium permanganate with magnesium shavings, and you have a pretty powerful explosive mixture. Put a drop or two of glycerine into potassium permanganate and glycerine spontaneously burns. There are tons of interesting experiments y…

Or mix with aluminium powder (from arts/crafts-store) and get fun flash explosive mixture.

Re: 'Very, very pink' tap water in Alberta town

#59

Post by mulmen »

jcranmer wrote: post #31
stagbeetle wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not use livestrong as a source. If the pictures are true to the situation, the concentrations are tiny. You can look up videos of people putting less than a teaspoon into water to get the same result. IIRC, PP can be a precursor to chlorine. But, you're comparing two different chemicals here and what applies to one likely doesn't apply to another. There is a chance your skin will feel like it's burning if it'…

> IIRC, PP can be a precursor to chlorine. Converting KMnO₄ to Cl¯ would require a nuclear reaction. Chlorides are generally soluble, so it's not going to cause an insoluble salt to slowly dissolve as a permanganate salt precipitates instead. It does appear to be a stronger oxidizing agent than Cl₂ (and Cl¯ and ClO¯ and ClO₂¯), but there are likely better reducing agents in most water than dissolved chlorine ions.

I wish I knew enough about chemistry to know if you are providing valuable commentary or pulling our collective leg. I will give you the benefit of the doubt.

Re: 'Very, very pink' tap water in Alberta town

#60

Post by loonattic »

hwillis wrote: post #51
carterehsmith wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> You can buy potassium permanganate tablets to purify drinking water. Or drink your own piss, ala Bear Grylls. Healthy, and helps build character. I just think that these Albertans are just a bit too... spoiled I think?

Jeez, its not like they have to live with it from now on. The treatment facility made a mistake, one as harmless as putting food coloring in the water. As soon as there's new water in the system it'll run clear again. It's a fuckup, its inconvenient, and people may choose to use bottled water for a few days, but it doesn't mean that the government is made of tyrannical despots.

I think the government is made of tyrannical despots, but this incident seems pretty harmless, unlike what's happening at Flint.
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