Originally posted by Imagrunt:
Recipe for long term water storage:

Bottle must be clean and free of algae, mold, scum, and any chemicals such as chlorine or even soapy residues.

Cap must be clean and bottle must be airtight.

Water must be filtered via reverse osmosis, or through a good tight filtration system like a Big Berkie, or other known, excellent water source.

I know this part will excite some to argument, but here goes:

After filling the bottle, drop a silver coin and a few copper pennies into the container (pre-1964 U.S. quarters and dimes work best as they are a silver-copper amalgam), or add the appropriate amount of ionically distilled elements to suit your needs, and in accordance with the container size (gold, platinum, calcium, iodine, potassium, zinc, selenium, boron, magnesium, sulphur, etc).

Seal and date-label the containers and store in a relatively cool, and dark location away from even indirect sunlight.

I routinely store water for one year in this manner, and I performed a successful 3 year test of a 6 gallon bottle with one teaspoon of 200 ppm ionic silver added.

There are also other non-chlorine water additives which can aid in long term storage, but the three most important elements are:

[b]Clean Container
Clean Water
Proper Storage

Just my two anti-parasitic, pre-1982 pennies' worth. [/b]