Talk:Potability of backcountry water
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[edit] Rockwell study
[edit] Is giardiasis a threat in outdoor recreation?
Robert Rockwell, an engineer by training, quotes James Wilkerson's Medicine for Mountaineering and Other Wilderness Activities. (The Mountaineers, 4th edition, 1992):
- "In recent years, frantic alarms about the perils of giardiasis have aroused exaggerated concern about this infestation. Government agencies, particularly the U.S. Park Service and the National Forest Service, have filtered hundreds of gallons of water from wilderness streams, found one or two organisms (far less than enough to be infective), and erected garish signs proclaiming the water hazardous."
Rockwell also quotes two researchers who surveyed health departments in all states and scanned the medical literature looking for evidence that giardiasis is a significant threat to outdoor people:
- "Neither health department surveillance nor the medical literature supports the widely held perception that giardiasis is a significant risk to backpackers in the United States. In some respects, this situation resembles (the threat to beachgoers of) a shark attack: an extraordinarily rare event to which the public and press have seemingly devoted inappropriate attention." (Welch, Thomas R. and Welch, Timothy P.: Giardiasis as a Threat to Backpackers in the United States: A Survey of State Health Departments. Wilderness and Environmental Medicine, Vol. 6, 1995)
In his exhaustive article, Rockwell concludes that untreated surface water in the Sierra Nevada is generally safe to drink. He notes that "Giardia and other intestinal bugs are for the most part spread by direct fecal-oral or food-borne transmission, not by contaminated drinking water. Since personal hygiene often takes a backseat when camping, the possibility of contracting giardiasis from someone in your own party someone who is asymptomatic, probably is real. Recalling that up to 7 percent of Americans, or up to 1 in 14, are infected, it is not surprising that wilderness visitors can indeed come home with a case of giardiasis, contracted not from the water...but from one of their friends."[1]
[edit] References
- ^ Giardia Lamblia and Giardiasis by Robert L. Rockwell, June 4, 2003, Loma Prieta Chapter of the Sierra Club website. Accessed Nov 6, 2006.
[edit] Discussion
This material was removed with the edit summary : "original research". To the best of my reckoning, all research is original. The Wikipedia policy, WP:NOR, prohibits only original research by editors. It is a corollary of WP:V, because all information must be verifiable by other editors. Original research (in the WP sense) would be if I attended a baseball game and then wrote about the crowd reactions, or some other detail not elsewhere reported. In this case, we can all verify that the study exists, so we aren't engaged in original research when we report its contents.
While original research isn't a problem, Rockwell's credentials are slightly problematic. He doens't report any training in life sciences. However looking for microbes through a microscope isn't rocket science, and he is a rocket scientist. He appears to have conducted his study rigorously. It was published in "Yosemite Association News Letter #4", cited in papers, and reportedly posted by all federal agencies. So it has been widely accepted as legitimate. The paper appears to have good general information on giardia in addition to the actual study. -Will Beback 07:31, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
- You may be right. I think I've read several policy pages that support my decision, but the only one I can find right now is Wikipedia:Verifiability#Sources. --Smack (talk) 05:49, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
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- Half a loaf is better than none. What other sources do we have for this article? -Will Beback 09:12, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
Rockwell certainly didn't do any original research. His paper has 66 citations that are all highly legitimate. He points out that National Geographic, after contacting him, published an article that verified his information.
[edit] Combining sections
I've added reference to some material from an academic from Tulane Unversity's School of Public Health, T.R. Welch, which is similar to the Rockwell material.
I've also combined the two previous sections and removed a bit concerning Rockwell's quote of Welch, which seemed somewhat redundant after adding direct reference to Welch.
There may be a slight problem with my edits regarding POV, but I can't find any scientific material that counterbalances the view that backcountry water is generally potable.
This article has been around for a number of years and nobody has offered any verifiable countervailing material to Rockwell or Welch, both of whom, one must reasonably assume, made a good faith effort to review all available published research.
It's my opinion that there may be sound reasons for filtering water in certain places, but I and I don't think mere opinion is adequate here. I'm hoping somebody can jump in with solid material.Calamitybrook (talk)
- The Welch and Rockwell sources are good, but they are far from comprehensive. Welch is just talking about Giardia (which is very often misdiagnosed by people who never see a doctor - I think the Rockwell paper discusses this), and Rockwell is just talking about the Sierra Nevada. Given the lack of ongoing monitoring for backcountry water sources, I don't really expect any definitive sources to show up, but we should cite what is available. There are also factors such as "can the average hiker understand the difference between a stream which contains runoff from a cattle pasture and one which does not" which is a public education issue. Don't know if that one has been studied (e.g. surveys of hikers or some such). I don't think the article has major POV problems, but we probably could do better at bringing across caveats like distinguishing the areas which undisturbed watersheds versus many popular areas for outdoor recreation which are not so pristine. Based on the Derlet data, I think we can say "backcountry water is generally potable" in places like the High Sierra, but that is pretty much the most favorable definition of "backcountry". Kingdon (talk) 14:59, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
