water by ground water well (safe?)

[Geuf]

I was wondering. leaving chemical contamination out of view, is groundwater that has been won out of a freshly dug well safe to drink and free of bacteria, giardia, parasites and virusses? Because when I see people (coughraymears,leshiddincough) on tv doing this. they dig a well, fill their cup and say with a big smile: fresh water, straight out of the ground. cheers! Any thoughts, advice on this?

thanks

 

[Northern Giant UK]

I think RM etc probably owe their constitution & strong immune system to years of doing this kind of thing.

My personal view is without being absolutely sure of the source/cleanliness of the water, why take the chance? scoop it put it through your Milly bag, boil it and (chemicals aside cos there's nothing you can do about them) you can be pretty sure your going to be fine.

Kev

 

[h2o]

you dont know whether a dog has crapped on that place in the last few weeks and the rain has washed the crap into the soil.filter and boil!!!

 

[Geuf]

I know various ways of making water safe to drink. that's not the problem. The thing I'm wondering is, if groundwater is (generally) safe to drink. because I haven't heard anyone say anything about it with well founded arguments and ideas.

 

[He' s left the building]

... is groundwater that has been won out of a freshly dug well safe to drink and free of bacteria, giardia, parasites and viruses?

No!

Although groundwater is generally* protected and so generally* safer than open waters such as rivers/streams. Part of the appeal of bottled Evian/Volvic/Buxton/etc is that is has been underground for hundreds of years and so has been out of the above-ground water-cycle for a long time so probably* has not picked up any bugs or modern/synthetic nasties (pesticides, fertilisers and so on)

(*but not always!!!)

With regards to immunity, although it is possible to develop some degree of naturally-aquired immunity to many bugs and nasties (both water-borne and insect-borne), we are generally always vulnerable to pathogens (technical term for bugs and nasties) ... even RM who I believe has had malaria twice!!!

Whilst on a short-term project, I was shown by an in-country field-worker in East Africa how to dig into a dry-river bed and scoop up the water that collected, she claimed it was pure and could be drunk without treatment. However, the reason we were there? To vaccinate and treat the local tribal population, including, yep you've guessed it, for worm infestations and dysentery caused by ingestion of contaminated water... !!!

 

[Geuf]

So it is generally safer to drink than surfacewater, it is not safe to drink per definition.

thanks for the info

 

[He' s left the building]

Always a pleasure!

Here's some further reading, there is a pdf leaflet titled 'Groundwater' which is very good:

http://www.safewater.org/GetPage.aspx?ID=42

Enjoy!

 

[Cairodel]

The bottled water available here has been drawn from wells IN EXCESS OF 700m DEEP.!!
I should think this is probably the case with most bottled stuff..
In the case of water here, it has spent years seeping through the underground plates,
originating in the highlands of Equatorial Africa. So, can anybody here please tell me why
such water carries a "sell-by" date....??????????

 

[born2roam]

....So, can anybody here please tell me why
such water carries a "sell-by" date....??????????

Other than marketing and the influence of daylight to water that has been hidden from sunlight (bacterial growth etc.) ...... no not really....

Geuf;

I think you summed it up when saying: in general a bit safer to drink than surface water but I wouldn't chance it perse.

That said, I did chance it several times but only cos I have a fairly strong immune system in regards to this stuf (and others), nothing to brag about... I just 'got it' (inherited, grew accostumed to it whatever)...hey the locals were drinking it (The Nile, Borneo etc.)... so can I (not too smart I know)

Grtz Johan

 

[-Switch-]

My personal opinion, for what it's worth, is to at least filter it before drinking, if only to get rid of the silt that's bound to be present in water retrieved from a well.
Silt can cause gut impactions, which don't sound like they're gonna be much fun uppy_dog

There's a type of well called a 'gypsy well' which filters the water as it fills. It's lined with grass and straw etc to act as the filter but I've no experience of making or using one, so I'll leave it to someone else to offer good advice on that...

 

[Davy Stephenson]

Some good advice on water filtering etc.

Where ever you get water from its going to have a certain amount of bacteria in it, from a well stream, home made filtering device etc etc.
Our farm,s supply comes straight out of the hillside and has been tested OK for the last 30years, the water keeps flowing non stop and has never stopped since our family bought the place in back in 1927.
Water from a flowing source is safer than standing water unless there is a dead sheep laying in it upstream, even if you move above that contamination there could still be more further up from that.
Even with modern reverse osmosis filters not everything will be taken out but many of these filters will take enough nasties out so the imune system of a healthy adult should be able to cope with them.
Always boil your water for at least a few minutes and never store that water after you have boiled it, unless you are going to use it pretty soon afterwards, because bacteria can quickly re-colonise it again, because there is nothing like chlorine in it to protect it against any other nasties afterwards.

A fact which I learned the hard way whilst on exercise in the jungles of Borneo, myself and a couple of others I ended up being medivaced out of there with Giardiasis, not for the faint hearted I can tell you.

SO BOIL IT, drink it, and bin it, don't store it unless you are going to drink it very soon afterwards, no matter how you filter it, you can use dissinfecting tablets for this but they don't always work and I hated them with a passion.

DDS.

Never eat polar bear meat.

 

[Geuf]

Thanks for the remarks Davy,

You have posted some information I wasn't aware of. for example that in every source of water there can be bacteria found. If not to much they can be dealth with by the body's imune system. thanks for this.

However there is something that I don't agree about. Wich is boiling the water for several minutes. For water to be safe it is only needed to bring it to a roling boil. even at heights. this is because of the fact that bacteria can't cope with a temperature higher than 70 degrees celcius. the time it takes to get the water to a hundred and back to a drinkable temperature kills enough bacteria to drink the water safely.Never had any problems with this.

Cheers!

 

[Davy Stephenson]

Hi Geuf

There are many non desructive bacteriums that the body can cope with iff ingested in small numbers, a lot of this depends on the individual to as how much one is infected, what might make someone violently ill might only give another very mild sumtoms, some bacteria can survive the journey through one person then go on to infect the water supply that everyone else is drinking and infect them, this is because of a special coating surounding them, as in Giardiasis, you can never be sure what will happen to all of the people all of the time.

You are correct on the altitude/temp senario here, my survival tips were aimed at those of general use travelling around the world, when I mention polar bear meat earlier, this was for those who knew about the bacteria or lack of it in colder climbs, that lives inside these beasts, if your going to shoot and eat one of these the meat must be almost nuked before eating it.

In many situations you can die from infection due to injury, but one of the fastest and most painful ways to die is from contaminated water, the types of bacteriums found around the world rapidly colonise the gut and dehydration will kill you quickly and faster than many others, Africa is one of the worst places for this, there are hundreds of water borne nasties just waiting for the unwary.

In Africa there are some tiny water borne creatures that can withstand extreme temps, they can lie dormant in the ground for many years, and when accidently collected from an open well and taken in with the water, after the water is boiled and has cooled down again, they can be seen swimming around in the water, it seems that the boiling process reactivates them from their sleep, if you ever get to see this, after the water has been bioled, place some water that others are drinking which hasn't been boiled and see if those little creatures live on afterwards, if they don't, don't drink that water, these little creatures are harmless by the way.

There are some bacteria that can survive boiling temps for several minutes, these are not likely to be present in many water courses, so if your unsure about it, simply boil it while you have the fire going, better to be safe than sorry.

One other fact that some might be interested in is the bacteria called Helicobacter Pylori, this has infected around a quarter of the worlds population, in Japan and other developed countries it is thought to be present in around 40% of the male population over 40, most people can live with it without any symptoms, I myself have had this which did effect me quite badly at one time, you can see all of the information on Google, there is thought that this bactreium has found a way to survive even the most stringent forms of water treatment found in modern society, maybe because of the over use of chemicals and the bacteria becoming imune to them like many modern antibiotics, I beleive that much of this can be avoided by simply boiling the crap out of the beasties, food for thought though.

There is now a simple test for H- Pylori in the form of a ten mminute breath test kit, go check it out on Google.

Davy.

 

[lavrentyuk]

Here in mid Wales the main danger with surface water from a standard shallow well - as used by hill farmers to ensure water for livestock - will be things like liver fluke from sheep faeces and similar biological contaminants. I can cope with a bit of peat silt as my consumption is fairly low so it shouldn't pose a danger and is easily filtered anyway,

Richard

 

[Davy Stephenson]

Hi Richard

Our water supply on the farm has always been pretty good, and we have never had any problems with illnesses, we only started having it tested when we started a caravan site, the minisrty had to check it out because of the general public using our supply.

Over the years our immune systems do adapted to your conditions, before we put a much improved home made filtering system in place we used to get fresh water sponges popping though from time to time, having these creatures in the supply told us that it was free from copper and other metals because they survived, sometmes the odd little frog would come through the larger cold water bath taps, you had to be quick and remove them before the scolding hot water zapped them.

Have a read of my previous posting.

Davy.