Chapter 20：Restoring Tap Water

Last night, Chen Dao informed the Stuart siblings about the signal issue, which left them somewhat disheartened. To help them bounce back, Chen Dao decided to start restoring the water supply to the base today.

Ever since the water supply was cut off, the Stuart siblings had been fetching water from the pond with a small bucket for daily use. They drank the water raw, luckily their stomachs were strong enough and they didn't encounter any problems.

Ever since Chen Dao arrived, they started drinking water that had been boiled in a pot and then poured into plastic bottles for distribution among the three of them. He had explained to them the dangers of drinking raw water and the possibility of zombie virus transmission through water sources.

After a few days of adjustment, and under the influence of Peyton who was used to drinking tea, the three of them had become accustomed to drinking cool boiled water and brewing tea.

However, it was not appropriate to always rely on Timonia to fetch water from the distant pond with a small bucket. It was exhausting for the young girl, and there was also the possibility of attracting zombies back.

It would be best to collect, store, and use water centrally, which would not only ensure hygiene but also protect the safety of the team members.

Early in the morning, Chen Dao had packed up his equipment and set out with Timonia and Peyton in the car, carrying an empty canister previously used for alcohol, ready to fetch water.

The water quality in the Midwest of the United States is hard, but in the Mid-East, the water quality is soft. Overall, the water quality in over 85% of the United States is hard, and the remaining 15% of soft water is concentrated in New England, the Pacific Northwest, the Atlantic Gulf area, and Hawaii. The water used by American residents is much harder than that in most parts of China.

Therefore, in American rural areas, it is easy to see farmers with dry and yellow hair. Without a doubt, they must have frequently drunk untreated cold water.

As a result, modern New York City has come up with a bunch of strange methods to reduce the mineral content in the water, such as water diversion from outside areas, spending a huge amount of manpower, material resources, and financial resources, to bring water from the Catskill and Delaware basins. This is because the water there is not polluted by urban groundwater, at least it's not very hard to drink, and various kinds of coagulation sterilization, mineral sand filtration layers, etc., which make the municipal water that would produce white crystals after a slight boil, become swallowable.

The water they drink has to cross the bottom of the Hudson River...

In many cases, it's not that Americans don't know that boiling water will reduce hardness, but that they simply can't afford the kettle to boil the water!

This situation in China is only felt by people in remote areas of western China, where a pot of water can boil a large amount of scale, and the kettle has even become a fast-moving consumer good.

At the same time, the issue of drinking water safety in the United States should not be underestimated. One is that the relevant drinking water regulations are too old. In 1974, due to the poor quality of tap water across the United States, the U.S. Congress reluctantly passed the Safe Drinking Water Act and has never amended it since, except for minor revisions in 1984 and 1996. This is why today, in Arizona, Texas, Nevada, and other places in the United States, "arsenic water" with excessive arsenic levels appears, and "mutant springs" with excessive uranium levels appear in New Jersey and Oklahoma. And these waters are surprisingly "qualified" drinking water!

In the U.S., legal drinking water can't be drunk, it's really "trapped by the national conditions".

Another reason for the poor quality of tap water and drinking water in the United States is the aging water pipe drainage facilities, especially in rural areas where 1950s old pipes are still in use. These things are even more complicated and laughable.

For example, the Los Angeles city reservoir is covered with black plastic objects to block sunlight due to excessive compound standards. When exposed to sunlight, it will decompose into substances within the regulations, which eventually leads to secondary pollution. And Flint City, in order to reduce municipal water expenditures, changed the water source from Detroit to local river water. The result was that the local river water's PH value was too low, corroding the old water pipes and causing severe lead over-standard in tap water. A year later, they were forced to change back and needed to spend nearly 10 million U.S. dollars to treat 8,000 children who suffered from lead poisoning due to lead over-standard tap water...

Every time they want to save money, they end up spending more. After the president who knows everything took office, he even cut the EPA's finances...

And the president after him was even worse, giving money openly but actually curtailing power. The report issued by the FDA, which is responsible for water quality testing, is no longer useful. Instead, local water quality tests are issued, like letting a weasel watch a chicken coop, and I'm the referee, I also run on the field.

Kentucky is unfortunately also a hard water area, but the situation is a bit better, better than the hardest areas...

But this is not "good" at all! It already has the second hardest water in the entire United States!

But there's no need to worry too much. Although the overall water quality in Kentucky is hard, the Ohio River, which has a wide distribution, has very good water quality.

Especially in the Kentucky Lake Forest area, the water quality can indeed be ingested after simple boiling treatment.

So, for now, Chen Dao didn't need to go through the trouble of fetching water like in New York City. He just needed to get the water from the small pond, disinfect it with the water purification tablets that almost every American family prepares, and then it could be used for paper burning.

The water pipes that were dismantled from the private liquor dealer's farm are very new. These cast iron pipes can be used. Chen Dao decided to use these pipes to build a small water tower for water supply. But supplying water to the second floor is out of the question. There's no winch pulley, and the water tank can't be sent to a high place. At most, it can be set up on the first floor to supply tap water for the first floor.

Timonia sat in the co-pilot seat, Peyton sat inside the car bin, holding the canister to prevent it from falling due to bumps.

Chen Dao drove the car, leisurely driving south along the highway, and soon he could see the houses on the outskirts of Faria Village.

The pond is on the east side of this north-south road, at the northwest corner of Faria Village. There is a small farm across from it. Chen Dao slowed down the car and turned to Timonia and said, "What's the deal with that house?".

"That's an empty house for sale, there's nothing inside," Timonia replied. She had already explored that place before, and indeed there was nothing.

"Um — maybe we can stop there and also take a look at what the village is like now," Chen Dao said, and then drove the car towards the empty house for sale.

This small standalone house was obviously also a local farmer's, with a now completely dried up flower garden that hadn't been tended for who knows how long. There was also a swing set up next to it, no garage, but there was a parking spot.

This small house, like their farm base, also had a special cement road leading directly inside, it seemed like these roads were all privately built?

Chen Dao stopped the car in front of this house, and the three of them got out of the car one after another. Chen Dao carried the Alice backpack, with an M9 in the holster; Timonia slung a Zibber and carried a small backpack; Peyton tucked two short-barreled revolvers into his jeans and carried a bag with seven or eight ready-made Molotov cocktails.

They observed their surroundings as they headed towards the pond with Timonia leading the way.

As they approached Faria, Peyton became more and more nervous, Timonia also became fully alert, and Chen Dao was already prepared for combat.

The trio arrived at the T-junction of Faria Village, and they could already see the chaotic zombie crowd at the village entrance.

The first thing that came into view was the unnamed pond, and further away was a small community with many wooden single-story buildings like those in the middle-class communities of Riverside Town, all of which were residences of the villagers.

Further away was a burger shop, and the gas station was to the east of the burger shop.

Chen Dao saw three larger zombie groups, one near the gas station, where there was a large zombie group of 200-300; another one in the parking lot of the burger shop, seeming to surround something, the number was similar to the gas station.

The last one was gathered in the field by the road, not so many, about 70-80, and a car crashed into a haystack in the field, you could see the tire marks extending from the road to there.

These zombies should be about 1/3 of the total number in the village.

Timonia briefly introduced the situation inside the village to Chen Dao. They initially lived in a two-story guesthouse in the southwest of the village, where their uncle Lawrence was confined in a room on the second floor of the guesthouse.

The three of them slowly approached the village, all their attention was on the zombie group.

"They rarely come this way, they usually go east... Those zombies were there before Peyton and I went to the farm, look — that's Yuen Ningman, the pastor of the Faria Church."

Timonia pointed to the zombies in the field, their formation was slightly deformed, like a cup of rice scattered towards the north, the most around the car, the rest scattered on the land of the field.

The gas station and burger shop were similar, in a spindle shape.

It might have been caused by the loud noise of the plane passing overhead a few days ago.

Among these zombies, there was a person clearly dressed in a black suit, with a shiny white block on his neck against the black suit.

Don't underestimate this white collar. It's a Roman collar, a symbol issued by the Catholic Church for clergy. It signifies their status as clergy. Although this small white block is simple, the meaning it contains is not. According to the church's simple explanation, there are as many as 23 meanings, spanning across various eras. There are many anecdotes and uses in it, so we won't go into detail here.

"Indeed, wasn't he supposed to take the sick child to Louisville..." Peyton recognized the figure after a closer look, taking over Timonia's words.

Then he also realized something, "He didn't succeed? Did he die here?"

Timonia didn't respond, she just silently glanced at Peyton, then continued to introduce Chen Dao to the situation as she knew it.