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RE: [at-l] Water treatment

Ginny O. wrote:

> Problem is not just giardia and assorted little beasties like that,
> but
> things like horse droppings, moose piss, fertilizer, pesticides, soap,
> mine tailing runoff, etc. I may not like it, but I will carry a
> filter.
> 
I use a filter as well, and I'm not trying to suggest that people not
treat water, but I'm not so sure that the filter is removing as many
contaminates as we might like to think it is.  Without being burdened
with actual knowledge on the subject, it seems to me that the beasties
get filtered out because they are relatively large.  To filter out the
other stuff I would think that the filter would have to work at the
molecular level, letting molecules of H2O pass through while blocking
molecules of say, soap.  Unless I'm missing something, this isn't going
to happen. 

> There are very few places that are clear of contamination.  A few
> years
> ago they did a study in Colorado - 100% of the streams tested were
> contaminated with giardia.  The AT gets a lot more use by a lot more
> people who are ignorant of LNT. 
> 
I wonder what the results would have been if the test had been done 25
years ago.  Are people ignorant of LNT really a major source of giardia
in streams?  It seems to more likely that giardia is a natural part of
the ecosystem.  Has the water quality really changed that much, or is it
our bodies ability to deal with the beasties?

Either way, I guess I'll keep filtering...

Peter
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