Slate: You don't need to filter your stream water

Started by Hydra009, February 01, 2018, 11:50:03 PM

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Hydra009

https://slate.com/technology/2018/02/filtering-stream-water-or-fresh-water-is-medically-unnecessary.html

QuoteAs Twitter’s hikers and campers were quick to smugly point out, unfiltered water can be dangerous to human health. That’s why treating backcountry water sources for contamination is a fundamental tenet of outdoor recreation education, ignored at the peril of contracting giardiasis, cryptosporidiosis, or worse. In this case, however, popular opinion is wrong: The idea that most wilderness water sources are inherently unsafe is baseless dogma, unsupported by any epidemiological evidence.
QuoteThese companies are effective in linking their water filtration devices with the real need to mitigate waterborne diseases in conflict zones, developing countries, and other regions where the burden of the human population on freshwater sources is great. But in claiming the average hiker or camper needs a $99.95 microfilter pump to avoid illness and death, they far exceed the conclusions of a scant medical literature.
Heh, Big Filter must be making out like bandits.

So, is any of this true?  Or is Slate pulling my leg?  Can you really walk up to a stream, cup your hands, and be a-okay the next day?  Cause from what I've read, even freshly collected rainwater isn't 100% safe.



And it's weird that the (hopefully not cherrypicked) studies failing to find a link between disease and drinking from wilderness water sources don't match the CDC asking people to filter their water.  Either there's a need to filter water or there isn't.  Someone's deeply in the wrong here.

Hijiri Byakuren

In medieval Europe, the water was so bad that most people drank a very weak alcoholic beverage called ale for hydration. The alcohol was necessary to kill off diseases, parasites, and "creeping things."

So yeah, fuck Slate, boil your water when camping.
Speak when you have something to say, not when you have to say something.

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Cavebear

Quote from: Hijiri Byakuren on February 02, 2018, 12:18:12 AM
In medieval Europe, the water was so bad that most people drank a very weak alcoholic beverage called ale for hydration. The alcohol was necessary to kill off diseases, parasites, and "creeping things."

So yeah, fuck Slate, boil your water when camping.

I know enough about history to know that with sufficient population and lack of water-purification methods, weak beer is not the worst thing to drink.  And I was interested to see in a recent TV show that beer was shipped in poorly-sealed barrels.  So it wasn't carbonated and it usually wasn't cold.

I spent 2 weeks camping once, and I got used to warm beer (briefly).  But isn't warm uncarbonated beer just sterilized warm thin porridge?

YUCK!
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Jason78

Most fresh water sources are probably fine, and your immune system should be able to deal with any pathogens it's familiar with that may be present.

Most fresh water sources...   The problem is that unless the water is obviously dirty, you're not going to be able to tell if it's contaminated or not.


So yeah, boil and filter the crap out of it.   It's the only way to be sure.
Winner of WitchSabrinas Best Advice Award 2012


We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real
tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. -Plato

Cavebear

Quote from: Jason78 on February 02, 2018, 04:54:42 AM
Most fresh water sources are probably fine, and your immune system should be able to deal with any pathogens it's familiar with that may be present.

Most fresh water sources...   The problem is that unless the water is obviously dirty, you're not going to be able to tell if it's contaminated or not.


So yeah, boil and filter the crap out of it.   It's the only way to be sure.

"Obviously" dirty water isn't the problem.  It can look perfectly clean but be contaminated and infested. 

Filters and chemicals do not sterilize the water (and I am using "sterilize" loosely).  You have to boil it for about 15 minutes.  Odd as it may seem. even a rolling boil is not heating up ALL the contents immediately.  15 minutes in a small pot, though, will.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Gawdzilla Sama

Ale was also a way to store protein and git a bit of a giggle in the process. The pyramid builders included generous portions of beer in the laborers' diet, usually at the noon meal. This helped get them through the afternoon shift.
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

Gawdzilla Sama

Quote from: Cavebear on February 02, 2018, 05:26:09 AM
"Obviously" dirty water isn't the problem.  It can look perfectly clean but be contaminated and infested. 

Filters and chemicals do not sterilize the water (and I am using "sterilize" loosely).  You have to boil it for about 15 minutes.  Odd as it may seem. even a rolling boil is not heating up ALL the contents immediately.  15 minutes in a small pot, though, will.
Ever tried atabrine tablets? Makes water all kinds of fuckin' tasty.
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

SGOS

Is stream water safe?

As a one time avid hiker in Montana, who averaged 500 miles each summer in Wilderness areas (yes, I kept track) I can unequivocally answer that question with a resounding, "Who the Hell knows?"

Having said that, I had hiked the wilderness areas without a canteen for 20 years drinking directly from icy cold streams, and never experienced any symptoms.  This was before I ever heard of a thing called giardia.  In the late 70s the news papers in Montana suddenly flooded with articles about giardia and its symptoms, and along with that, a lucrative market for portable filters with mesh certified small enough to get the nasty critters out of your drinking water.  Oh Great!  More shit to have to pack into the woods.  As a side note, giardia is a protozoan found in the feces of warm blooded animals.  Beaver are often mentioned as prime carriers, perhaps because they spend so much time shitting in the water.  And much of the stream water I drank flowed right through beaver ponds.  But moose, bear, skunks, deer, mountain goats and other warm blooded animals, of which there are many in the woods, carry it too.  I never knew anyone who got the bug giardia, although I've heard maybe 3 or 4 rumors about people I didn't know, who supposedly got it.  It was even claimed that one of them had been diagnosed with it by an actual doctor. 

It did concern me, and I ordered a filter with pump from REI, a catalog for hikers and mountaineers.  It was a small inconvenience to use it, the biggest of which was having to drag more equipment up the mountain.  It weighed less than a pound, but pounds and ounces tend to add up in a hurry.  However, I missed the charm and freedom of gulping water from glacier or spring fed streams and mountain lakes, which is a magically satisfying experience when you are hot, sweaty and thirsty in July and August, especially if you haven't had a drink for the last four miles. 

One day in 1980, I was building my house when an electrically knowledgeable guy stopped by to help me install my breaker panel.  Turns out, he was also an avid hiker.  We got to talking, and I asked him if he worried about giardia.  I will never forget his reply; He said  "When I'm in the Wilderness area, I don't worry about anything!"  That tipped the scales for me.  I mothballed the water filter, and hiked another 25 years without getting sick.  I did avoid drinking water down stream from human habitation, and I would simply not drink water from a stream that I was unfamiliar with or within 1000 miles of Chicago.  And I would avoid anything downstream from a mining operation because of heavy metals in the waste, and that would be true, even if I had a filter.

So is it unsafe?  How unsafe?  Depends on the area and other factors.  But there is always a risk.  In my case, I felt the risk was insignificant, but if you have any concerns, I'd recommend a filter and pump.  They are a nuisance, but not that big of a nuisance.  Personally, I'd be more worried about some gun toting guy on the trail with a paranoid obsession about grizzly bears.  But that's just me.

SGOS

Quote from: Jason78 on February 02, 2018, 04:54:42 AM
The problem is that unless the water is obviously dirty, you're not going to be able to tell if it's contaminated or not.
I agree.  You just don't know.  For what it's worth the clearest water I remember seeing in Montana flowed through the tailings of an abandoned gold mine on the edge of the wilderness area.  I was in my teens and in love with the "clean" streams of the west, but some old timer warned, "Jesus Christ!  Don't drink any of that.  It's loaded with toxic contamination."  So yeah, you never know what's in the water.

aitm

simple answer; where are you? Down in a valley downstream from a city or town? Maybe not so safe. Up in the hills above towns and other obvious polluters? No problem. I mean most natural water in the "wild" is pretty darn clean. Common sense. Water goes down hill and carries whatever it is the way with it.
A humans desire to live is exceeded only by their willingness to die for another. Even god cannot equal this magnificent sacrifice. No god has the right to judge them.-first tenant of the Panotheust

Gawdzilla Sama

Drink river water? There are fish in that water. Do you know what fish do in that water? EVERYTHING!
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

Gawdzilla Sama

We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

Munch

Don't drink stream water without filtration, bears and fish piss in it
'Political correctness is fascism pretending to be manners' - George Carlin

GSOgymrat

I wouldn't plan to use untreated water from a stream as my primary source of hydration on a hike or camping trip. I know from experience how miserable it is to be sick when on vacation.

SGOS

Come to think of it, I was talking about what I perceived as rarity of giardia with a hiker friend.  He quite casually commented, "I had it one time.  At least I think I did," so I asked him what it was like and he replied, "I was queasy for an evening after I had been hiking in the Wilderness area and drinking the water."

From what I understood about giardia was that:

It has flu like symptoms, so, "Maybe."
It's symptoms are persistent requiring prescription medication to kill the critters, so, "Probably not."
The cause can be determined by a doctor.  Stool samples, I suppose, so, "probably not in my friend's case."  I haven't kept up with the reading since I stopped worrying about it, but this doesn't seem like a solid diagnosis.  I wrote that one off when I heard it.

As is often the case when something gets sensationalized like the explosion of giardia warnings in the media, people mysteriously start claiming they have it.  And years ago, I read a lot of conflicting information, as sensationalized reports seem to create a lore, not all of which is based on current medical knowledge.

And come to think of it, I did ask my doctor once if they had been seeing any giardia cases in our county, and he nodded and said, "A couple of cases have shown up."  So I'll amend what I said previously about only hearing rumors.

Of course, there's more than just giardia in the water, but people don't seem to worry about anything else were I'm from.  But everyone talks about giardia as if it's the only concern they have.  Myself included, as you may have guessed by now.