is the water drinkable?

[Alison]

can anyone out there tell me how you can tell if water is safe to drink ? i know that you should always boil your water, but i have just found a place where the water appears to be bubbling up from below and i would hate to boil any goodness out of it!!! knowing my luck it is probably a hole in a local gas pipe!

 

[outdoorcode]

not sure how to tell, but I guess position of the hole would be a start? i.e half way up a mountain, your back garden?

 

[Alison]

it is in the local woods, close to a marsh area.

 

[leon-1]

Alison, I would be a little wary, you say near a marsh, is the water in the marsh stagnant?

Are there animals in the area that could be drinking, urinating, defecating or even have died in the marsh.

Is it a marhsy area from runoof from agricultural feilds and as such could be susceptible to insecticides and the like.

As I say be carefull

 

[Stuart]

Short of having a laboratory there is no way to know if the water is safe to drink or not, no matter how fresh and clear it looks

You can either drink it and hope that it’s ok (not recommended, though many of us are guilty of doing so on more than one occasion ) or boil it and be sure that its good

 

[Povarian]

or boil it and be sure that its good

[Nit pik alert].

Boiling kills off most biological contaminents, but you need to be careful about toxic chemicals especially in lower lying land near industry/human habitation because of runofff.

 

[VIRULENT SALAMANDER]

DOES BOILING IT GET RID OF HEAVY METALS?

if not it will not be good for you. I would recomend you distil it ! if your going to drink it.... ..

 

[VIRULENT SALAMANDER]

[Nit pik alert].

Boiling kills off most biological contaminents, but you need to be careful about toxic chemicals especially in lower lying land near industry/human habitation because of runofff.

Great minds think alike! ~~~~

 

[Ahjno]

can anyone out there tell me how you can tell if water is safe to drink ? i know that you should always boil your water, but i have just found a place where the water appears to be bubbling up from below and i would hate to boil any goodness out of it!!! knowing my luck it is probably a hole in a local gas pipe!

As Stuart already mentioned: you can't, without carrying a laboratory (or you have to drink some, and when you grow octopus arms and turn green you'll know it isn't save) - and there for I treat every watersource with caution, and purify it either by cooking or chemical means. This might seem elaborate and unnecessary, as there are sometimes watersources suitable for direct consumption. But for me (having Crohn disease ) I take no chance at all.

 

[Alison]

i think i may just take a rain check on the drinking water!!! But many thanks to you all

 

[Povarian]

Great minds think alike! ~~~~

or... "Fools never differ"

 

[anthonyyy]

Are you in a position to take a few bottles of the water home with you? It's not impossible to do some basic testing at home.

 

[redcollective]

I like hillwalking and I'm also a huge drinker ;-) (on a hot day walk in the hills I can drink 5 litres I kid you not). I don't know how safe my rule of thumb will be for you but i've always followed the rule a hillwalking aquaintance of mine gave me (who has a constitution like an ox because he drinks from just about anything!)- the higher up the better, and the farther away from animals and people the better. That pretty much rules our everything below the tree line up here in the north of england.

I've drunk from high streams in the Lakes with no ill effects, and the odd low(ish) tarn, but I wouldn't touch anything else without boiling or/or filtering first. You can get filters which chemically treat at the same time btw.

My wife and I traced a stream up in an urban wood the other day to find a sign warning of potential sewage contamination. Be careful and trust your instincts - it probably wont kill you - but it could give you the squits. ;-)

 

[bushwacker bob]

I live quarter mile from where the springs that are the source of the river Hamble bubble up from the ground. Straight from source I wouldn't drink it without Boiling it!

 

[Tantalus]

i guess scotland must be a little different

i drink and swim in local water without ill effects

but having said that i know the area well and am sure to swim well upstream of any habitation or even farming. Much of our hill country is too steep to cultivate and hence water will not contain pesticides or other crop sprays

Biggest risk is a dead sheep in the burn , but even then if you have already drunk it before you find the sheep there is not a lot you can do

Alison you dont say where you are or how high up the water source is, a bargepole is about the only thing i would touch the thames or the mersey with but even then there are things living in the water, salmon have reappeared in the thames

Tant

 

[spamel]

Don't forget that although boiling will kill off organisms, it will do nothing to pesticides and heavy metals in the water. In fact, it will concentrate them as you will be losing water through steam and this will leave the nasties behind, and therefore you will drink a more concentrated solution

A trick I use for collecting water is to take it from where it is white and frothy flowing over a rock, etc. The agitation deposits heavier floaters and this water will be clearer. Of course, this will not prevent the afore mentioned nasties or any biological thingys. Try to get it from the river that flows into the lake, or the stream that flows into the river. The closer you get to the initial source, the cleaner it will be.

Millbank and iodine or boiling is a safe method for biological stuff, but I think you will need one of those filter pump thingys for chemicals, I've only ever used the standard water set that is issued to the army consisting of three large heavy bits of kit and oodles of inch and a half hoses!!

 

[Goose]

With big black "S" type paddling pool?

 

[JoshG]

On the subject, There is a resevoir not too far from where I live in the hills. We found a stream running directly into the resevoir and the water looked very nice. We had a few gulps but didn't want to drink too much incase it had too much of something in it and may have had laxative effects etc... The stream was fast flowing directly from the hills, but further up the hills we noticed some of the stream beds were very orange, possibly large quantities of Iron in the water? Do you think it is safe to drink?
-Josh.

 

[Stuart]

On the subject, There is a resevoir not too far from where I live in the hills. We found a stream running directly into the resevoir and the water looked very nice. We had a few gulps but didn't want to drink too much incase it had too much of something in it and may have had laxative effects etc... The stream was fast flowing directly from the hills, but further up the hills we noticed some of the stream beds were very orange, possibly large quantities of Iron in the water? Do you think it is safe to drink?
-Josh.

since there is no way that you could be sure that the water is safe no matter how clear and clean it looks without taking a sample and testing it scientifically , it is totally impossible for people on an internet forum to advice you whether your stream is safe to drink from.

if you are confident that there is no chemical pollution of the water source (which in this case you are not) then the simplest and most reliable method of purification is to boil the water.

if there is any chance that the water contains chemical contaminates then it should be avoided entirely, regardless of what the instructions that come with a water filter/purifier pump say that will not remove chemical contaminates.

for example if you take a pint of water and add salt so you have a saline solution then pump this though a filter/purifier into another glass you will find it is still a saline solution, the filter/pump hasn’t removed any of the salt, nor could it have done (don’t do this with your filter/purifier it will damage it)

the only pump system which can remove most chemicals in solution is a reverse osmosis pump (used on ships for creating drinking water from salt water) but the cost, weight, and effort involved in using one of these would defiantly put you off carrying one around and some chemicals would still get though, urea for example.

 

[Graham_S]

in case anyone is interested, there is a seller on e-bay (mickies_place) with MSR waterworks EX filters selling them cheap with free delivery world wide. i got one for just under £70 which is half the uk price.
magikelly has one and told me about it at the recent scottish meet.
water filter