From: Jerry Lewis (jerrylewis@attbi.com)
Date: Wed Mar 13 2002 - 21:05:14 CST
I was told by PhilStaff the year they did it the reason was because many of the
Scouts weren't using the pills properly (or so they had determined.) When the pill
is dropped in the water bottle it'll sometimes stick to the cap and not get dissolved
in the time the Scout thinks that is happening. Second, iodine tablets take varying
times to dissolve, depending on the temperature, water clarity, whatever. Scouts
will push the times to get a drink. If the tablet was dissolved late, the solution
was not achieved. All of this matters because until the iodine gets totally
saturated in the solution, you don't have the cootie-killing ability the pill was
approved for.
Enter Polar Pure:
No dissolving time--iodine is in perfect solution when it hits the water.
When PP was introduced (at Philmont), circa 1993, it was done so with
less-than-consistent training. Rangers were throwing out all kinds of times for the
recharging and for the disinfecting. Advisors who'd never seen the things were
really at a disadvantage as to what to tell the Crew Leader. Naturally, there was
lots of Advisors' Shack talk that summer about how to use them. The biggest
complaint then--and now--is once you've used the 10 or so capfuls, you're toast until
recharging can occur. It takes lots and lots of bottles to do drinking water for a
crew and (back in those days) cooking water, too.
Upon returning home in 1993, out of curiosity I ran down Philmont's supplier who got
me the name & address of the manufacturer. I called. They were invented and first
put out by a "mom 'n pop" shop in California. She is a chemist and the inventor of
the method. He is an engineer and the inventor of the special Bakelite cap that
won't disgorge otherwise dangerous raw iodine. It took them years to get Food & Drug
Admin approval. When we spoke, they were still shipping the boxes out of their
garage. I posed the question regarding what exactly is the correct time period for
recharging. She said during testing, proper solution was achieved, even in cold
water, in no longer than 25 minutes. The time of contact is the same as with any
iodine product. No different for the Polar Pure iodine.
Back then, Philmont taught contact time once solution was achieved of 30 minutes, 35
if the water is cold. Of course, it's always cold. I don't know if Philmont ever
actually talked to the inventor. They hadn't when I called. It doesn't really
matter. Philmont was not going to have unusual, different, or hard-to-remember times
for the Scouts. The following year, 1994, I think, the policy was taught, fairly
consistently this time, of 45 minutes to recharge, 45 minutes for contact time. In
2000, our Ranger told us an hour to recharge and an hour of contact time. You can
see how the size of the fish gets bigger and bigger each year.
Knowing all this, what to I teach? 45 minutes is what I prefer, primarily because
that's what the Ranger will probably say. If we are in a pinch and recharging has
positively been going on for 30 minutes, I advise the CL to use the bottles.
Besides, nothing that iodine is going to kill will still be alive after 30 minutes of
good, quality (sic: totally disbursed solution) contact time. Twenty will work if
you can get warm, direct sunlight on the bottle for that entire time. Iodine won't
kill cryptosporodium. The cist is too hard. This cootie does the back stroke in
iodine and cries for more. Fortunately, we've not had significant problems with
crypto in the back country, YET.
The problem is 45 minutes is hard for Scouts to compute. We train the watermen to
scratch the starting times in the dirt with a stick. Sometimes that works; sometimes
it doesn't. Asking them to write the start time in a pad proved to be asking too
much. Because of all that hassle, we try to go by the hour/hour system. It's way
too long; but it's easy.
Jerry Lewis
ASM & 2002 Advisor 625-K-5
Troop 303, McKinney TX
----- Original Message -----
From: <EA1981GLE@aol.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list philmont <philmont@troop47.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 13, 2002 7:24 PM
Subject: Re: [Philmont]: Water Filters
> Out of curiosity, why did Philmont go to the Polar Pure water purification?
> The Iodine tablets worked well for all of the trips I took into the back
> country in the 80's. When I went in 95 it was my first contact with Polar
> Pure. I had my bottles of iodine tablets with me and found them to be faster
> and easier to use.
>
> Was it just that the per cost use of polar pure was cheaper or was there
> another reason. BTW, the iodine tablets must still work as you can buy them
> in the BSA catalog and in most outdoor stores.
>
> Anyone have any answers?
>
> Alex in LA
>
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