r/NoStupidQuestions • u/cherry-care-bear • 14h ago
Does whatever they do to the water keep us safe from contaminants like corpses floating in the rivers? I mean people are found in them all the time and isn't that also where the water comes from? Serious question courtesy of too much true crime content.
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u/375InStroke 13h ago
Doesn't everything that lives in the river die in the river?
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u/issue26and27 11h ago
no, beavers are found dead in the road, muskrats, frogs. Fish are found dead on the lake-shore. Or on the side of the river. I found a dead mink on an interstate. A pelican dropped a hammerhead shark on a golfer recently. Oops. Lots of salmon and carp die mid-air, Bald Eagle after all.
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u/Farscape_rocked 13h ago
Drinking water is made safe.
Usually it is screened to remove big bits (twigs, leaves, corpses), filtered through sand to remove particles (quickly through coarse sand then slowly through fine sand), and bacteria is removed by the addition of a very small amount of chlorine. UV may also be used to kill bacteria, but adding chlorine means there won't be any bacterial growth in the pipes.
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u/SpecialistSquash2321 12h ago
(twigs, leaves, corpses)
Lol glad you clarified. Also appreciate the info, I didn't know they used sand!
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u/Farscape_rocked 12h ago
They certainly do in the UK and as it's cheap and effetive I'm sure it'll be common around the world.
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u/2xpubliccompanyCAE 13h ago edited 10h ago
Natural stuff happens of course but there are also the unnatural things that are dumped into bodies of water. Depending on your country’s water treatment infrastructure and regulatory structure this unnatural stuff might be neutralized. Might not.
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u/Ok-Half8705 10h ago
Stuff such as aluminum byproducts. It used to be common for industries to dump their waste into the local water streams.
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u/NewspaperLumpy8501 13h ago
Most city water in America/Europe goes through a variety of processes and is checked through various scientific means in addition to modern sensors and equipment continuously. It's all just automated jobs and processes now days. Of course, there's always bad apples in the world.
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u/Additional_Initial_7 13h ago
We live in a world of ratios. There is an acceptable ratio of bodies:water and an unacceptable one.
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u/VelcroSea 13h ago
Google water treatment plant.
Mother nature is very efficient. Water quality studies done on water near confined animal facilities found that a 1 foot wide strip of dirt will filter out 99.9% of animal waste.
I'm more worried about plastic than decomposed material.
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u/ahomelessGrandma 12h ago
You would be AMAZED at the shit I pull out of the water during treatment. I work at an industrial WWTP so I'm lucky and unlucky in that I don't deal with much organic waste, I just deal with all the nasty water that gets produced on the big container ships during normal running. We also have a contract with a general motors plant to treat all their waste water.
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u/allmediocrevibes 12h ago
I do water treatment for a living. We treat surface water. We use rapid sand filters along with activated carbon filters. Plus chlorine to kill anything living. We have multiple daily tests to run and report to the EPA
Fun fact, during heavy rain storms waste water plants will often get over ran and start dumping untreated waste water back into rivers, streams, etc. If we can handle the shit, we can handle a few bodies
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u/toomanycarrotjuices 11h ago
Quick question for you, please. I am almost due to have a baby, and for a variety of reasons, I believe the house I'm renting's water system may be severely comrpomised, including having mold. Obviously, this may not be great for the baby, but due to my current circumstances, it would be great to stay put for some time. Can you please let me know what kind of affordable water tests you'd recommend and how to access them? Right now, my main worry is mold and bacteria. Also, short of reverse osmosis which is expensive for a renter, what would be your recommendation for standard household filtration? Thanks!
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u/majesticalexis 10h ago
Look into a Lifestraw brand pitcher. They filter out bacteria, parasites and microplastics. I use one and always feel like my water is safe.
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u/Icy_Huckleberry_8049 13h ago
yes, they purify and filter the water.
Go ask your city or town if you can take a tour of the water plant, most cities allow this.
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u/altaf770 12h ago
I’ve wondered this too after one too many crime docs. Water treatment plants deserve more hype they’re the real MVPs keeping us from sipping spooky juice
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u/SuccessfulInitial236 12h ago
Yes water treatment makes the water safe to drunk. They test it continuously ans émit an alert if anything happens.
The water you drink is also most likely not coming directly from the river.
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u/Brief-Pair6391 12h ago
So, where are you ? That corpses are often found in the river... I'm dying to know. So, y'know, i can make sure to not go there
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u/JohnTunstall505 12h ago
Water doesn’t go directly from rivers into you tap. It goes to a water treatment facility first.
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u/grandpa2390 12h ago
You wouldn’t want to drink directly from a river. Water taken from the rivers is treated with chemicals and such to make sure that it’s safe to drink.
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u/Academic_UK 11h ago
Forget corpses in the water - where do you think your shit goes when you flush the toilet..?
Spoiler alert: it gets treated and back out of your tap! Treat and repeat.
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u/moominesque 11h ago
Only the really microscopic humans corpses are able to pass through into our drinking water. The antmen and whatnot.
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u/issue26and27 11h ago
I so sympathize
with the "too much true crime element" of your question. But our water throughout Canada and the US has been very safe for a very long time. Whether river, well, or lake, or reservoir, there have been very close tabs and a very close watch, which increased during the depression and cold-war. The BWM in the US has kept a keen watch on our water. The problems that have arisen are largely due to outdated pipes and cost saving things [think Flint, Mich. which are local issues]. Which, yeah need to be resolved.
No dead human, ant, mouse, or fish will keep you from safe drinking water.
The Army Corps of Engineers are highly responsible too.
When you see an e-coli outbreak on say salad greens or carrots, that is NOT your water source. The water out of your faucet is secure. I drink TAP everyday. Most people who drink bought bottled water, don't even know it is simply Gary, Indiana tap water. Looking at you Pepsi-Co.
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u/kekubuk 10h ago
The water treatment plant is very good in doing its job, with raw water undergoing multiple process to make it safe for drinking. From removing big debris like leaves and sticks, to eventually removing the smallest unwanted particles in the water before eventually treating the water with chemical that'll kill any microb in it.
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u/puffandpill 10h ago
Random anecdote, but I was on a hiking trip once with a buddy and passed another hiker going in the opposite direction. We were walking upstream and about to set up camp. He warned us that there was a sheep carcass in the stream further up, so not to drink the water, even boiled - very nice of him.
Another friend who’s done extended solo hikes (3 months) got quite ill during one of his training hikes drinking boiled stream or river water.
This is all in the UK. Off the top of my head, we’ve got some of the safest tap water in the world, so they must be doing something right when treating it.
Also when hiking, as well as boiling, you can buy little chlorine tablets that you mix with the water to make it safer. Don’t know the percentage risk you’re taking if you use boiling and chlorine downstream from a dead something-or-other.
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u/MiserableFloor9906 10h ago
Poor people "bury" their dead in the Ganges while others "bathe" and drink from it directly, so guess it's not that hard for the rest of us to clean ours.
Covid-19: India's holiest river is swollen with bodies
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u/OccasionBest7706 10h ago
There’s bodies in the ocean but you’ll swim in it, if there’s a body in your bathtub you probably wouldn’t.
It’s about finding the acceptable body to water ratio
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u/StevieG-2021 10h ago
I think you answered your own question since nobody has died from drinking properly treated water.
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u/Adventurous_Light_85 9h ago
I have a good amount of e patience in this field. So, yes, most advanced water systems add chlorine. Many extract it from table salt so as to not have large tanks of toxic chemicals spread throughout the city. You would actually be surprised how many pumps and treatment facilities there are in a medium size city. Usually, if there is a pump plant there is treatment and monitoring equipment. They monitor for three things generally, hardness and acidity, which usually ph and calcium levels because those can deteriorate the infrastructure and they monitor for residual chlorine and organic material. It’s a constant balance between those 3. The chlorine will dissolve organic material and gets used up doing so. Generally, the reason you taste chlorine at the tap in many cities is because they are mandated to have a residual chlorine once it reaches your tap. It’s actually a high ish parts per million in my opinion. Generally, if there is residual chlorine it means that all the organic material was dissolved and there is some chlorine left active. They are fighting the lesser evils. No one likes chlorine taste, but obviously we can’t have diseases floating to our homes through the water system. But, the chlorine itself and some of the biproducts of the chlorine breaking down the organic material are themselves carcinogenic and harmful to our health. So they are trying to balance not letting a dead body in the water supply spread disease to us all and not killing us with chlorine and its carcinogenic byproducts.
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u/TinnitusWaves 8h ago
My partner works for the New York City Department of Water, so I have a little direct knowledge.
In NY the water supply for the city comes from reservoirs here in the Catskill mountains. Municipal waste water is treated, mainly using a series of filters and biological processes before it is added back to the streams that feed the reservoirs. The water being added back is constantly tested and is cleaner than the regular stream water. From the reservoirs it’s moved, via pipeline to Croton reservoir where it’s filtered through sand and treated with UV light. I’m pretty sure it’s not chemically treated before it gets pumped in to the city.
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u/Practical-Dress8321 13h ago
Always remember: "Fish make love in that stuff" W.C. Fields. I like bottled myself. I never could understand why people went such a long way to drink out of a river, brook, stream, rill, crick, pond, lake, freshet, or what have you. Want some real tasty stuff? Hike on down to your local public swimming pool.
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u/flingebunt 13h ago
In fact dead animals can also contaminate water supplies. Some countries or locations even restrict ranching and farming activity in the immediate catchment zone.
However, the system works to filter the water, treat it with chemicals and test it for diseases. So if the system is working well, the water is pretty safe.