Quote:
Originally Posted by uncle_bob
There really is no guarantee that what you bring in *is* any better than swamp water. The gotcha of a "super filter" is that you take more risks. "My filter will protect me". Take a look at the data on anti-skid brakes as an example of this.
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Apples and oranges. Anti-skid brakes have exactly
zero relevance to potable water sources. And there
are guarantees that the water you bring into your Airstream is better than swamp water. My experience with potable water supply systems isn't as extensive as some others here on the Forums, but I have designed and built water wells and water treatment systems for Army Corps of Engineers facilities in remote locations (
including facilities in the Atchafalaya Basin swamp, by the way), and I've done my due diligence with regard to researching water sources and water treatment.
Every public source of potable water is required by State regulations (in all 50 states) to be tested at specific intervals for specific contaminants. In Louisiana where I live, the regulatory agency for water wells and treatment systems is the Department of Natural Resources. Conversely, the regulatory agency for
wastewater treatment is the Department of Health and Hospitals. Go figure.
Exact requirements and terminology vary somewhat from state to state, but in general, water sources are classified as either transient or non-transient, and as community or non-community. Even privately-owned and privately-used wells for single-family homes are required to be tested for at least organic contaminants such as nitrates, nitrites, and fecal coliforms at
some interval.
In general, there is a hierarchy of potable water sources that determines how often the water has to be tested, and what contaminants have to be tested for. All testing is performed by state-approved testing laboratories, including testing of "control" samples to verify that the testing methods and procedures are accurate.
A small campground that gets its water from an on-site well would be classified as non-community transient. Non-community because the well serves a small number of people at any given time, and transient because the same people will only drink the water for a few weeks at most before moving on. Non-community transient water sources have the lowest testing requirements of all
public water sources. Testing will be done as seldom as once a month, depending on jurisdiction, and the number and type of contaminants is limited to those that create an immediate threat to life and health, mostly organics and fast-acting poisons. Contaminants that only cause long-term effects only are not considered.
At the other end of the spectrum will be the water treatment plants in a major metropolitan area. These are considered non-transient community sources. The water is tested frequently, often several times a day to several times an hour, and the number and type of contaminants is extensive, including contaminants that could cause long-term health effects.
The theory is that for community sources, if the water is bad a lot of people get sick at the same time and can overwhelm the health care system when they seek treatment for what ails them. For non-community sources, if the water is bad only a few people get sick at the same time. For non-transient water sources, the same source could be used for years or even a lifetime by the same people, so contaminants that can only cause long-term health effects can eventually hurt the people drinking it. For transient sources, theoretically no one will drink the same water long enough for long-term hazardous contaminants to build up to toxic levels in their bodies.
To further complicate matters, the EPA publishes TWO lists of contaminants. The EPA Primary Drinking Water Standards identify contaminants that make the water
unsafe to drink, and lists the maximum safe level of said contaminants. The EPA Secondary Drinking Water Standards list contaminants that make the water
unpleasant to drink. Some of the contaminants on the secondary list also appear on the primary list, but with a lower threshold of acceptable levels, while others on the secondary list don't appear on the primary list at all. Compliance with the primary list is mandatory; compliance with the secondary list is optional, in nearly all jurisdictions.
At any campground in the United States, the people most likely to suffer ill effects are the camp hosts, who will use the same potable water source far longer than any other campers. If they don't get sick from drinking the water, you shouldn't get sick either.
At
any campground in the United States, the water coming out of the spigot should
always be safe enough to drink, for a period of a few days to a few weeks— unless the water distribution system has recently been damaged so that surface-water contamination could enter the system between the treatment system and the spigot. If the water
wasn't safe to drink, then as soon as people started getting sick from it, red flags would pop up at the state agency responsible for monitoring water quality. But as noted in the different EPA standards,
safe to drink doesn't always mean
pleasant to drink. The water treatment devices you use for your Airstream should be selected for the purpose of making the water pleasant to drink. Let the state regulatory agencies worry about whether the water is safe to drink.
In my engineering opinion, the only people who need a water treatment system that renders the water
safe to drink are long-term boondockers who get their water from non-state-approved sources such as directly from a river or from collected rainwater. Or RVers who are careless enough or desperate enough to fill their tanks from a non-potable source such as the spigot at a dump station.
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