Sweetwater Setback

Water filters

Cascade Designs, a Seattle-based equipment manufacturer, has stopped selling a certain group of SweetWater water purifiers, noting that the supplemental cartridges designed for removing viruses are not reliable to the degree required by the Environmental Protection Agency.

“Effective immediately we are discontinuing sales of the SweetWater ViralGuard cartridge and products incorporating the cartridge: the Guardian Plus Purifier, The Guardian Plus Combo Pack and the Global Water Express,” said the Cascade Designs press release.

“To our knowledge, there have been no reports of anyone becoming ill as a result of using the ViralGuard cartridge purifier component, which has bee used for years in the outdoors. However, after extensive research and testing, we’ve concluded that portable iodine resin bead technology, as used in the ViralGuard, does not meet the EPA standard for purifiers (99.99 percent of viral inactivation).”

The basic SweetWater Guardian Microfilter and the WalkAbout Microfilter are not affected by this decision, Cascade Designs said.

These filters meet EPA’s stringent standards for removing bacteria and protozoa such as Giardia and Cryptosporidium, the release said.