Can you drink from a fresh water stream?

Jokester said:
Because stagnant water is better for bugs to live.

Jokester
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OK I guess I didn't word that the best since yes it's going to be better for you than stagnant water :)

Just be aware that boiling/purification isn't a guarantee of truly safe water, you really need a combination of them and an effective filter such as the one 6thElement linked to. Chances are you could drink from a stream repeatedly and suffer no ill-effects but the one time you do and get cryptosporidiosis...you'll wish you had been more thorough :)
 
Coming from someone who spends a good part of his day looking at groundwater, unless you were really thirsty and it was miles from nowhere. I wouldnt.
 
And from another who works in the Water Industry...

There's a reason all water is at a bare minimum filtered, regardless of coming from a "fresh source". All water contains bacteria and the like which requires filtered out but to be honest the most your likely to get is a dodgy stomach but it could be much worse.

I wouldn't risk it :)
 
I agree with the sentiments here, although Dartmoor is an upland with no farming (well no crops that farmers use chamicals on) and fast flowing streams and it has probably the cleanest water other than places in northern England and Scotland you still have the problem of bacteria and other crud.
I've drank the water many times but only after filtering it with a ceramic + carbon filter.

On a side note i miss the lovely soft tap water in Plymouth that ran off Dartmoor :(
 
Have drunk from a very fast clear stream high in the Lake District, just when it had rained over night.

Problem is if there any kind of bacteria in there your system will most likely not be used to it so you could end up with gut problems. Best not to really, only in emergencies.
 
Best advce I can give is get another water bottle - better to carry more than you need than be thirsty.

If for whatever reason you can't carry enough water then for £50-£70 you can get a water bottle that has a filter built into it (carbon and iodine) which will make it safe to drink but taste a bit funny.

For emergencies it's not a bad idea to keep a few purification tablets in your pack - they take up no more room that a few paracetamol, taste like **** but when you need them you won't care.
 
simple answer really, drink it, if after a few hours u feel ill then u'll know not to drink from that stream, if ** ok after a few hours, remember the stream and bottle it as dartmore spring, don't tell del boy thou, last time he got caught, or pepsi as they did that trick a few years ago
 
I was always told that the biggest danger was liver fluke, at least in sheep country. It's not sheep corpses in the water that you need to worry about, but sheep excrement - and lord knows there's plenty of that about.


M
 
I once drunk water from a stream and was violently sick for a full day. I felt OK in the morning but then when i went into town with my mum later on i just kept being sick. I had to keep running into burger king to use their loo, and every time i got a few meters away i felt sick again.
 
Mark A said:
I once drunk water from a stream and was violently sick for a full day. I felt OK in the morning but then when i went into town with my mum later on i just kept being sick. I had to keep running into burger king to use their loo, and every time i got a few meters away i felt sick again.
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Hmm, I thought the mayo tasted a bit funny that day.
 
On all the courses I have ever attended (including 3 Ray Mears courses) the advice was to never drink water without preparing it first. At the very least, you should use a fabric filter like a Millbank bag and then keep the water at a rolling boil for 5 minutes. You might get lucky once, you might get lucky a hundred times but there are some serious bugs found in water and it's not worth the risk.

For the record, I use one of http://www.raymears.com/shop_item_desc.cfm?id=87&itemType=Water&desc=Pre-Mac_MWP_Water_Purifier_Pump
 
I'd never drink directly out of any stream. It might look nice and clean and the chances are it will be fine. But it is not worth taking the risk. I've been camping call over the place and I just boil the water for a few minutes first. :)
 
Depends where I am, I have been up a mountian and drank the water there.

I generally use the rule, fast moving water high up = ok, slow stagnet water low down = bad.

KaHn
 
I see, well thanks for the replies everyone. As it turns out I should perhaps have risked it as I ended up dehydrated with sun stroke anyhow lol

And for those who suggested it, the Plume of Feathers Inn is where we stayed!! :D
Very nice little campsite, we very much enjoyed it, and the rides were lovely :)
 
Slightly off topic. Is it ok to drink rain water? Only ive drank it before and didnt get ill. But i also drank water on a river cruise on the yangtze (where we saw a dead body float past!) cuba, US and quite a few other counteries.

Dont think ive drank from a stream in England, possibly in scotland. Did in turkey aswell but we were high in the mountains
 
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