I’m currently walking the South West Coast Path in Dorset. I’m carrying water, but I’d prefer to lighten my load. I’m crossing plenty of very clear looking streams that run into the sea, I have a filter and some chlorine tabs so I’m not worried about microbes or particulates, but I am very aware that this is a very intensively farmed area, and I am worried about loading up on fertiliser and pesticides. Do people drink this water? Am I over thinking this?

There are extremely strict rules in place regarding use of pesticides and fertiliser near water courses, particularly in limestone regions like the South downs which are likely a nitrate sensitive zone NVZ. I’d be far more worried about the human sewerage which is probably being discharged quite legally by pour private water Companies

Good to know! I hope that’s the case. Yep, also concerned with Thérèse Coffey’s constant stream of hot steaming shite, but I’m hoping the filter and the chlorine should neutralise the worst of it

Maybe a bit melodramatic, but right now I wouldn’t drink from any stream in the UK.

I’d be far less concerned drinking from streams on high hillside/mountain top type places…I wouldn’t be going near anything low lying.

I have filters and tabs when doing over night trips, but I’d avoid water (what I assume is) that far down stream unless I had no alternative. Up in the hills yeh.

My concern is also farm run off and up stream sewage releases. I live in a cottage on a farm next to a river with a village sewerage plant up stream and miles of both arable and cow pasture alongside it. I was going to get a fishing permit to catch trout on it but Mrs Longdog said she’s not eating anything out of that for exactly those reasons.

I wouldn’t be too worried by the pesticides, the herbicides won’t cause you any issues anyway, the insecticides will be pretty dilute and farmers generally don’t over spray as the are expensive. I’d be more worried about the crap farmers dispose of in water courses and sewage as others have said.

Want to simply refill bottles – there is an app for that – https://www.refill.org.uk/

Would I drink from streams near the coast – probably not.

Dorset? Well it’d be bad form to not stop at the Square and Compass. Look out for Star Wars type personnel, as that will mean you are at Winspit. (filming spot). Head inland up the track and you’ll get to the pub.

And no to low-lying streams.

Maybe a bit melodramatic, but right now I wouldn’t drink from any stream in the UK

Drop the maybe 😁

I’d be far less concerned drinking from streams on high hillside/mountain top type places…I wouldn’t be going near anything low lying.

This. I do tend to take a Water-to-go bottle with me on longer rides now.

I remember many years ago while walking my local hills (the Ochils) I stopped to take a drink from a stream. Fully refreshed I carried on, about 100 yards up stream I came across a dead sheep in the stream! Thankfully it didn’t seem to make me ill other than giving me the boak psychologically.

I was going to get a fishing permit to catch trout on it

You might be able to catch a brown trout but maybe not the type you were expecting 🤣

Yeah, that seems oddly common on the Ochils…there are many many sheep around so not unexpected but it does seem a reasonably regular occurrence – was in amongst them earlier this week and one field had 2 lamb carcasses well chewed (that was the only instance of sheep in the 3 days I was there).

Came here to find an alternative to San Pellegrino. Disappointed.

You might be able to catch a brown trout but maybe not the type you were expecting

A ‘Mersey trout’? With sweet corn eyes?

A ‘Mersey trout’? With sweet corn eyes?

🤣

I only drink ASTM Type I as it’s “on tap” at work.

Rainwater twice filtered for me 🤗

Whatever comes out of my taps. Why?

Oh, right, I see. Well, whatever comes out of the tap still applies, I wouldn’t go near anything that’s further than a couple of meters from a fresh spring, and even then not without appropriate sterilisation available. Wherever there’s a water source, there’s rats, and wherever there’s rats there’s a risk of Lyme disease. Or sheep and cow piss.

Weil’s disease (leptospirosis) I think you mean

There are extremely strict rules in place regarding use of pesticides and fertiliser near water courses, particularly in limestone regions like the South downs which are likely a nitrate sensitive zone NVZ.

Are they enforced? Requires resources and money. Up my way it’s not uncommon for farmers to wait until it’s absolutely pissing it down before they head out to spread muck on their fields, with the consequence of the river turning brown with run-off.

I tend to use the policy of “if it looks clear it’s probably OK”, with chlorine dioxide tablets to kill off any bugs. Normal chlorine tablets work but take longer and have a revolting taste. Don’t forget that in cold water you might need to double the dose and waiting time.

I’ll go by what my corporals always told me: Unless you’re getting it from where it springs from the ground, there’s guaranteed to be a rotting dead sheep lying upstream from you and no portable filter system is going to save you

My impression was that a portable water filtration would save you, but it was more the fertilizer/heavy metals that they struggle to filter out?

I have drunk from streams in the highlands for years with no ill effects. Only if I am somewhere above any houses and where there are no sheep and a low deer population.

Upper Glen Feshie for example. I heard anecdotally that the deer population has been taken so low there to allow regeneration that they are in single figures in the Glen.

Actually for most of the Glasgow area it is only in the last 25 years that drinking water has been well filtered before that not much was done other than adding chlorine. Numerous Cryptosporidiosis outbreaks were linked to the water supply. Up to at least the 2000s the shores of Loch Katrine which supplies most of Glasgow water were heavily stocked with sheep. Which seems ridiculous to me. Public subsidy to allow pollution of public water supply.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9152614/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2600157/

Oh, right, I see. Well, whatever comes out of the tap still applies, I wouldn’t go near anything that’s further than a couple of meters from a fresh spring, and even then not without appropriate sterilisation available. Wherever there’s a water source, there’s rats, and wherever there’s rats there’s a risk of Lyme disease. Or sheep and cow piss.

I think you mean Weil’s or Leptospirosis. You would be spectacularly unlucky to catch them from the population density you would expect on an open mountainside.

Fastflowing mountain stream, straight from the stream. A little bit lower but above chemicals (above forestry and anything but open grazing agriculture) filter the name of which I forget, not the lifestraw but similar one sawyer?.

Accidentally I drink water all over the shop by falling in. I’ve also done the gulp gulp oh look a dead dear thing a few times… Meh I’ve swum in worse.

I work in river engineering I take it pretty seriously but sterilising direct from a stream is daftly overreaction.

I think you mean Weil’s or Leptospirosis. You would be spectacularly unlucky to catch them from the population density you would expect on an open mountainside.

I knew a lad that got it from a village Brook in Essex aged about 10. He was resuscitated multiple times in hospital. Lived a full life until early twenties when he died of leukaemia.

I wouldn’t even drink the tap water in Essex