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 by Cody Lundin
Gibbs Smith, Publisher, 2007
450 pp. $19.95
Cody Lundin prowls back and forth on his bare feet in front of us, a two-liter blob of crystal water balanced on his upraised palm. We’re a small group on folding chairs cramped into the mall library branch. Cody’s head brushes the dangling felt bats and ghosts of Halloween, setting them swinging. He seems not to fit so well in civilization as he brandishes this artifact of it: if civilization goes down, he says, this simple thing could save our lives.
The water in Cody’s hand inhabits a naked clear plastic Coke bottle. Lay it down in the sun for several hours; the UV radiation won’t kill all microbes but will whack the sickening guys, E. coli, Salmonella, Cryptosporidium, Giardia, et al. Of course, if your water is turbid with algae or sediment, you’ll need to pour it through coffee filters or a bandanna… And UV wouldn’t have helped in New Orleans, where the floodwater teemed with solvents, pesticides, antifreeze, the urban chem-cocktail. For that, you’d need to make a still.
You know how to make a still, don’t you?
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