[at-l] Water filters...

[icw39@ncfreedom.net (Clark)]

excellent warning - other places to really watch out:

1)  Greyson Highlands - there are several water sources/shelters in
areas frequented by the wild ponies;

2)  Anytime you are near livestock fields/pastures

3)  Anytime there is a road above you

4)  Anytime you take water from a large river, or springs that might be
"hydrologically connected" with a large river.


Walter Daniels wrote:

>>1)  If the water source looks really bad, don't use it AT ALL, or if you
>>do use it, count on boiling as your real protection, and don't wash
>>anything in unboiled water either.
>>
>>
> And even that is not good enough for some sources. For example near the gate
> just before you reach South Mountain Pass (next road north of Bear Mt Bridge
> in NY) you cross Coppermine Brook. The name says it all, this is straight
> out of mine tailings and likely contains disolved heavy metals - never
> tested. Boiling, filtering, or iodine/chlorine do nothing to heavy metals.
> Except when the flow is really slow it doesn't look bad. Sometimes at low
> flow there is a lot of an orange algae on the stream bottom which at the
> very least looks gross. Fortunately the quantity of heavy metals in that
> water is probably not high enough to cause trouble except for someone who
> drank it every day for months.
>
> Most streams in NY pass near houses, most of which are on septic systems. I
> would not bet on their safety without serious treatment. We have wells at
> Shenandoah Mt, RPH Shelter, Depot Hill Shelter and Wiley Shelter. These are
> tested monthly but we leave them posted as treat before use because we have
> a significant failure to past the tests. The failures are for colliform
> counts - usually very low but any fails the test.
>
>
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