permaculture

["Kate Halstead" <rockyprairie@earthlink.net>]

Many folks in and around the city of Ketchikan Alaska have had to rely on
roof catchment systems and cisterns for all their household water for years.
Never heard of any problems other than what happens in years of low
rainfall, then they have to rely on trucked in water that's then deposited
in their cisterns. I'd think there might be more issues from air-borne
particulate pollution ending up in the cisterns and thus in folks' bodies
than from rainwater, which isn't really distilled water, it definitely has
'stuff' in it.

Seems to me there are also villages in the seacoast mountains of Chile that
rely solely on mist nets to supply their drinking water. Can't imagine but
what there are many more examples around the planet of folk's subsisting on
either rainfall or collected dew as the majority of their drinking water.

Kate

-----Original Message-----
From: permaculture-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:permaculture-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Jody Troupe
Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2008 10:18 AM
To: permaculture
Subject: [permaculture] Rainwater - distilled water - ok for only source
ofwater?

Hello all-

Just throwing out a question that has come up on another discussion board.
I'm following an ongoing disagreement about the use of distilled water as a
sole source of drinking water (does it leach minerals, etc.)

Of the people that choose to use water catchment systems, its stands to
reason that there might be some that have to use that rain water exclusively
as their water source (no well potential, no piped water, no bottled). Would
relying on rain water as your only source of water actually be a problem?
Its naturally distilled.

Or, I've seen some designs for sun water distillers for countries that have
no access to clean water sources. They can distill their own water with this
sort of Teepee-looking thing, but again, it would be distilled water.

Does anyone have a comment, or have any actual experience with this?  
Doesn't it seem weird that naturally distilled water would be bad for a
person? For some, it might their only source of drinking water.

Thanks,
JodyT
_______________________________________________
permaculture mailing list
permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Subscribe or unsubscribe here:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture
Google command to search archives:
site:https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/permaculture searchstring