How to determine if water from a creek/stream is ok to drink from??

Here's a bit of irony...as I stated earlier, as a boy I'd drink out of creeks running through farm country (one ran right behind our house). Never had a problem. At one point, however, my mother and I got violently ill. This repeated until we had our well water tested. It had nasties in it. Our well was over 100' deep. Go figure
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Was the well cased? If not it can become easily contaminated. Casing can leakk or crack or rust with age. Testing every few years for fecal coliform is not a bad idea. Also there is a procedure for disinfecting a well with bleach. It works if you do not have an open source of contamination.
 
Was the well cased?
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Yes, it was cased. It was a very old well though. Like you said, it probably leaked. If I remember, We had some type of treatment/filter installed in basement. This was back in 70's. I think it was fecal coliform. That rings a bell.
 
How to know if water is OK? If you drink it and are then able to poop through a keyhole at ten paces without touching any metal, then it is probably not OK.:D When I was a wee lad going to boarding school in Pennsylvania, our water came from a resevoir up on the hill behind school that was essentially a gigantic rain catching cistern. Never had a problem with the water at school, but on a couple of occasions, the water back home in Connecticut messed with my gut when I first got home on vacation from school. I never had the problem once we moved back to Miami my last two years in school (we had well water from a rather deep aquifier), so it must have been something weird in the city water in Connecticut.
 
Just to add a little twist, a lot of people talk about bio-filtrations systems for urban living (apartment blocks, office buildings).
In fact, I saw a TV show a couple of years ago about a major office hi-rise in Toronto, Canada that used bio-filtration systems
to filter all of its water. Some kind of "green" project just when "green" was coming into vogue.

Well, the best bio-filtration system that I can think of would be a swamp. I'm willing to bet that the water exiting a swampy area
will probably be good to drink.
Not too sure about water seeping up through rocks as you never know what it might be passing through, lead or uranium deposits
perhaps, or as stated previously, buried contaminants.
 
Why in the world would you think swamp water was clean and safe to drink? I've known a few in my day and I've never been thirsty enough to drink from those stagnant fetid pools. I've also looked at samples under a microscope and let me tell you they were teeming with little critters.
 
When hiking in the mountains, I drink from the streams just for kicks. I know I am taking a chance, but if something goes wrong, I am prepared to accept the sickness. Havn't had a problem so far, and the water seems to taste better, more pure and refreshing (could just be mental). If I wasn't wanting to risk it, I think I would study the situation carefully and go from there, it would depend greatly on my location.
 
It is my understanding that dew is pure. As long as it is being collected off of non-poisonous plants and/or surfaces. I'm also under the impression that a solar still will purify water, although I haven't researched it thoroughly.
 
Yes, the solar still will purify water. I intended to try it out but I kept reading and hearing that they weren't worth the effort. Transpiration bags (clear plastic) are said to be more productive with less effort. "less effort" sounds good to me :D
 
d_filgate said:
Just to add a little twist, a lot of people talk about bio-filtrations systems for urban living (apartment blocks, office buildings).
In fact, I saw a TV show a couple of years ago about a major office hi-rise in Toronto, Canada that used bio-filtration systems
to filter all of its water. Some kind of "green" project just when "green" was coming into vogue.

Well, the best bio-filtration system that I can think of would be a swamp. I'm willing to bet that the water exiting a swampy area
will probably be good to drink.
Not too sure about water seeping up through rocks as you never know what it might be passing through, lead or uranium deposits
perhaps, or as stated previously, buried contaminants.
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I heard it was reed beds , with slowish moving shallow water .. looks like swamp but its not stagnant

Seen a docco about it on TeeVee so its GOTTA be true :)
 
NO F-Bdy Bs said:
How to determine if water from a creek/stream is ok to drink from??
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Just drink some and if you get sick then you know it's not safe! :D;)

Seriously though, I would boil, filter and/or chemically treat water from any source. If I had no means of treating it at all I'd take my chances I guess and go for the cleanest looking free flowing water I could find.

When I was a kid my grandpa and his brother and sister owned a piece of land in southeastern Ohio with a couple of cabins and lots of forest surrounding it. it was totally primitive with no electricity or indoor plumbing or anything. We got our water from a spring at the bottom of the hill that the cabins were on top of. The water basically flowed out of the roots of a huge tree and from there into a piece of three foot or so diameter clay pipe stood on end which basically acted as a "settling tank" where any sediment would drop to the bottom, then it flowed from the top of that into an old bathtub which is where we would drop in our buckets to get our water. We would sometimes find salamanders and newts living in the tub or the settling tank. . . I seem to recall my grandpa saying this was actually a good thing since they were a sign that the water was clean, but I'm a little doubtful of that now.
 
On Swap Water. The only Swamp I am familiar with is the Okefenokee Swamp. But they say that the tannic acid content is so high that the water is safe to drink. Its because of all the leaves or acorns falling into the water.
 
Swamp water does not filter out all contaminants. It is true that some aquatic plants absorb heavy metals and other contaminants but where do you think they go when the plant dies and sinks back in the swamp. Also they do nothing for the protozoans in the water. A neat little trick is to take a large jar of water form a swamp and let it settle for an hour or so. Then set a desk lamp or some other source of light near the glass and then look at all the little beasties swimming around, amoeba, ciliates, flagelates and so one. They would love to play in your intestines. (Kids love to see this)
 
You NEED to assume that the water, any water in the outback, will need boiling, filtering, or chemical treatment. Perhaps a combination of treatments in some cases. If you have ever had giardia or cryptosporidium, you will STRONGLY wish that you had taken every precaution necessary to avoid such. When one of my backpacking partners was contaminated with giardia lamblia on one of our trips, he made it very clear to me in the hospital (extremely dehydrated) that he would prefer death over the continued symptoms of giardia. He was so sick that he literally could not even walk (super athlete of a man, too).

Sure, I have played Daniel Boone or the mountain man with the iron stomach in the distant past by drinking directly out of streams. By some strange grace I was spared the misery of the parasite or organism...in this country. I have been contaminated with domestic drinking water in foreign countries on occasion, and I am here to tell you that this is NOT the route you will want to travel or gamble with. Better things to do than have it come out both ends for two to three weeks. When we travel abroad, we take a filter and make our best attempts at drinking only recognized brand bottled water. Can't be too safe! Period!

On the longer backpacking trips, we carry Furazolidone and Metronidazole for accidental giardia (treatment was compromised). Cryptosporidium will have to run its course in your body and I am not aware of any effective treatment for Crypto at this time (other than avoiding deadly dehydration). Some folks can and do suffer for months with these organisms if not diagnosed properly.

Play it safe! :)
 
in an emergency situation (ie nothing else available to help filter) water is water. let the doctors do their jobs when you get back home safely
 
Salamander,
I think you are partially correct there. Amphibians, newts frogs etc are very sensitive to toxins or pathogens-the products of industrial pollution. But I'd be suspicious about the micro bacteria and organisms that they live happily with, best boil everything! I mean these days in the EU and US you are getting a lot of cases of households being polluted by horrors in the tap water.
 
Say you have a farm that has a creek running through it? With all the fertilizer and manure runoff, if you boil this water would it be safe to drink? Does boiling kill everything? How long should it be boiled?
 
harstad@gmail.com said:
Say you have a farm that has a creek running through it? With all the fertilizer and manure runoff, if you boil this water would it be safe to drink? Does boiling kill everything? How long should it be boiled?
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Boiling kills the biological nasties, but doesn't do anything about the chemicals. I'd find a different water source if I had any choice in the matter.
 
On the piece of property I wander & hunt in NW Ct.--500+ acres--There are several springs that are pretty much year round. Ive been drinking out of them for years with a piece of plastic tubing I leave hanging in a tree near them. Ive never got sick but there is NO development of any kind up grade, including the top of the mountain--This is the only case other than survival that I would consider drinking un treated water. My house has a cased well that I get tested yearly--KV
 
Harstad, How long should it be boiled?

Minimum of 3 minutes...I'd do 5 to be sure.
 
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