Is my stream safe to drink

[micky]

What are the chances I can safely drink the water in the stream next to my house?

When I first moved in, I was told the county would test my water for free, but I dawdled for 20 years ago and then was told no, and that they never did that.

I don't think it's worth paying for testing, but there's a radio show on about people preparing for disaster, so I'm curious and I'd like to have some idea in case the worst happens.

The stream goes about 2 miles upstream from me, and there is no industry and no farms or farm animals. There are dogs, cats, squirrels, and quite a few deer, though they all stay on land and spend little if any time IN the stream. There used to be crayfish but I think they are gone.

There isn't even any more home construction. It's all single family homes and a few apartments (and lawns of the apartment buildings were spotless, and green, meaning like the homeowners they probably use fertilizer, weed killers, maybe even insect killers.

Which of these are bad for my health?

Isn't this stuff put down almost always in the Spring, and after a few days or the first couple inches of rain, most of the run-off has run off? So if disaster hits the other 10 or 11 months of the year, won't the water be pristine?

Even before the rain, it's diluted a million times by the rest of the water, right?

I once drank from a rural pond in Wisconsin for 12 hours, and it had no effect on me, so i feel invulnerable.

narrative.

picture of them in the hospital bed. Take a look

one has the picture in the hospital bed, maybe the 3rd one down.

's 77, he's 72

[invalid unparseable]

I think it foolish to take chances but you can buy water test kits and test it yourself. That is what I did for my new well. The state would have done it for a few dollars less but it was more convenient and faster for me to do it myself. The longest test takes over a day as it looks for bacteria growth but test strips only take a few minutes.

[Ed Pawlowski]

You can buy test kit. In a pinch, If I had a way to boil it first I would do that.

[hubops]

This small town tragedy went national in-a-hurry and changed a lot of our water treatment and testing protocols :

Plus many lessons were learned about disaster response.

John T.

[micky]

I was only going to do this if there were no water for anyone, a very unlikely event, but taken seriously on that radio show.

But this is still a great idea. I guess when I tried to find the free testing, home kits didn't exist or no one suggested it and I was too slow to think of it. Paying was going to require me to get the sample and take it somewhere, and since water came out of all my faucets, it wasn't worth the effort.

For sure. More convenient. (I don't think maryland had a state lab that would do it for me. They sent me to a private, profit-making lab.)

Cool

[gfretwell]

Boiling kills pathogens but it doesn't do much for chemicals. We have done a very good job of poisoning our surface water. I have been doing water sampling for the state for 20 years and after 20 years of complaining, FuG U is finally making a lab project of testing for chemicals. They have not released the results yet. We do test for various fecal coliforms along with the nutrients.

[gfretwell]

I guess after they fired those guys they moved to Flint.

[micky]

Boiling is a good idea, although in that disaster scenario, there was no electricity either, I don't have natural gas or a generator, and I have only a couple hours worth of camp stove fuel. Wait, I just remembered I have two gas grills which have almost full tanks if they haven't been leaking (one grill is better than the other but the "bad" one has a rotisserie Of course now that I'm losing weight, I can't eat a big meal like I would if I rotissed a whole chicken, or I'll start gaining it back.). And I weighed the tank I found in the mud near the stream and it weight 30 pounds which iiuc is 13 pounds of propane. (There's a chance the valve won't open and that's why someone threw it away.)

There are a lot of kits, one from Ace Harware tests for 20 contaminents but doesn't mention biologicals like e.coli.

Do-at-home kits,

This one is only $13 and that's what it tests for, They sell the very same thing at Home Depot for only 60 cents more.

And the well water test for $40 includes that too. I think maybe that's what I want. ????

They also have a city water do-at-home test and it leaves out some things they assume your city tests for. (They don't have a surface water test.)

My personality wants to check out all of them.

Send-sample-to-lab test

has 15 kits (I'm overwhelmed.) that you send to their lab, running from $50 to $400.

A lot of what I said at first still applies. They sell a glyphosphate test for $100 and the other cheaper and some more expensive tests don't test for that, but my upstream neighbors could well be using Roundup. Plus they don't use it every day so if it passes the test today, it could fail tomorrow. So I would have to depend on the fact that it's only used once in a while and it's diluted by the stream a million times.

"GLYPHOSATE IS FOUND in over 750 products sold in the USA, including Herbicides such as Roundup. THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION has identified Glyphosate as a ?probable carcinogen? ? (cancer causing)."

Finally, Safe Home Ultimate $399.95

Tests 200 Contaminants Certified Lab Testing for:

12 Physical Properties, 7 In-Organics, 32 Metals, 20 Pesticides & Herbicides, 78 Volatile Organics, 5 TTHMs and 47 Volatile TICs. FREE return shipping to our laboratory. Includes FREE DIY Bacteria Test.

Free Return Shipping Free DIY Bacteria Test Kit

I'm still curious how many of these tests my stream would pass, but that it passes one day doens't mean it would pass the next.

[micky]

Heck, what I learned from this ng is that if people with a strong will can get past Covid, I can get past e.coli! or even f. coli.

[micky]

Here's a much more expensive well-water test

$150. My ethical advisor told me cost does not equal value, but ....

[micky]

I used halazone in Mexico and Central America. I was told if you ask people, most can tell you if their water is potable, but it would embarrass someone if he had to answer No, so I just used it all the time. Didnt' get sick, don't know if I would have otherwise.

I thnk I still have the leftover pills from 50 years ago. I wonder what I can do with them.

Then I read they were saying iodine was better, iirc for non-tropical areas.

And when I thought I was returning to Guatemala, I bought this

's iodine with a second pill to get rid of the iodine taste.

[invalid unparseable]

Looked up Maryland and see what you said is correct. Now it appears that Delaware will now only sell you a kit to test yourself.

I got something like this at Lowes for $28:

State kits are much cheaper so now I would go there.

Problem I would think for a steam vs a well is that you do not know when something may happen to the stream to pollute it. Even with wells they recommend annual testing but I do not do it.

I did not go to the state that would have tested the water at the time for about $5 because I would have to get sample bottle and bring it back and wait maybe up to 3 weeks to get result. A plumber once tested my water for free. Of course they did it for potential business.

[gfretwell]

They make hand pumped R/O systems that make nasty water pretty clean.

[gfretwell]

You can't really trust the locals. They usually have an acquired immunity to things in the water that would have you in los banos for a week.

[angelica...]

I'm sorry my memory isn't what it used to be, but aren't you the guy who complained about all kinds of garbage washing downstream?

What do you think the dog, cat, squirrel, and deer shit does when it rains?

Cindy Hamilton

[micky]

That's not it. What I was told is that they knew if it wss potable for visitors including North Americans.

[gfretwell]

That reminds me of a story from my SIL. He is a land manager up state from you. (Grand Traverse) There were concerns about high fecal coliforms in a lake he managed to they did DNA on the fecal matter. It turned out to be bear poop.

It does settle the argument tho. Bears don't shit in the woods, they shit in the lake.

[gfretwell]

How would they know?

[micky]

How do Americans know if there is giardia or lead in the water?

[Wade Garrett]

Always drink upstream from the herd. - Will Rogers