The Orient Land Trust: A trip report

[eyesup]

Well, they are in the mountains. If wildlife uses the water for any reason there could be bacteria of all sorts in it. Surface water is not reliable. Water pumped from an aquifer is.

Maybe that is all that is happening.

Duane

[jbeegoode]

Well its the drinking water, probably a well source. I don't know of a perennial creek, but could be wrong. The bathers in the mineral pools coming from mineral springs would be a different water system that they couldn't pollute much and just runs out the mountain. The minerals are tough on pipes. I would suspect that patrons probably now are getting doctored spring water from uphill. I think it likely that they have a holding tank, which might have gotten algae, or something, or have the potential for something like that.
Jbee

[John P]

I very much doubt if there was any actual danger detected in the water. It's more likely that there's a regulation saying that if you provide water to the public, you have to follow some set of rules for how the water needs to be treated, and pass inspections to verify it. It's all "nanny state" stuff, but the idea is to prevent anything like what's been mentioned here--serving surface runoff water to guests, for instance. It's why you don't hear of people dying from typhoid these days.

Back in the 1990s I used to camp at a place that the Appalachian Mountain Club owned in western Massachusetts. You'd pump water with an old-fashioned hand pump, which was fun, but you quickly learned to use the pump down the hill, not the one on the farmhouse porch, because that one always had rust in the water. Anyway, the AMC finally decided to renovate the place, and what they found was that they couldn't use the old pumps, and that meant drilling a well and bringing in electricity to raise the water, and also there had to be real bathrooms, and who knows how much it all ended up costing. Not to mention that it used to be a semi-secret place with highly picturesque ramshackle buildings, and now they rent it out for weddings. Sad stuff.

http://www.nobleviewoutdoorcenter.org/

Ah well. The trails down in the woods are as good for nude hiking as they ever were.

[BlueTrain]

Having lived in a ramshackle house with no inside toilet and an unreliable water source, I have no romantic notions about primitive living. It was a log house in West Virginia built probably in the 1840s.

[Greenbare Woods]

The OLT land has a natural spring that is blocked off from use as a soaking pool.  It is collected by a pipe system and feeds their drinking and wash uses.   I seriously doubt that the natural spring water had any contaminates.  As John said, it was probably a code requirement. 

[nuduke]

We need water purification these days because we have woven a much more antiseptic environment for ourselves in the modern world.  If we drink river water untreated or unsterilized we get sick.  I have the impression that did not apply to our ancestors 2 centuries ago.  They only had natural water supplies in the countryside.  But did it, I wonder?  Did they, in fact get equally sick equally often if they drunk natural water unboiled?  I have read often that for hundreds of years people didn't drink water much, they drunk a weak form of ale called small beer, that had been boiled and sterilised by brewing.  Anybody got a perspective on that?
John

[jbeegoode]

Wine, ale, tea is all boiling and processing water for safe use. Every culture had fermented safe foods, too. Some fermented enzymes are essential for healthy gut bacteria, which affects the entire bodily system. They weren't ignorant of the difference between safe and rotten and how to fix it. It's tea time, is governed by need to drink, not just etiquette, isn't it?

There were fewer contaminates. We drank from streams in Virginia when I was a boy. We drank from mountain streams in New Mexico and Idaho, too. There are more pollutants everywhere, now. The cattle are wide spread, crapping out nearly all clear water sources in Arizona. It used to be very different and not that long ago.

Watching Naked and Afraid, I noticed that many of the participants got licked by the water. People used to dig deep to get at filtered water, like animals do. Animals can smell water below the surface. Need water, watch what the animals do and follow their lead. But when I do that, some f... cow has already pissed in it.

When traveling in south and central America, I would get sick from water. The locals handled it. They were used to it. They had built up immunities. It is just like vaccine works, they adapted to they environment and newcomers get sick. Just like those small pox blanket gifts to the Indians, or the demise of 25 million Native Americans when Europeans arrived with simple diseases that they had no immunity to. The Europeans got sick, but it killed the native population wholesale.
Jbee

[BlueTrain]

Actually, some diseases still cause the deaths of a lot of people, mostly due to unsanitary conditions. Diseases like cholera are very serious and affect people mainly in third world countries (a term I don't like). I don't think people develop a resistance to such things. Typically, in the United States, springs that you find back in the hills are perfectly safe to use, provided sensible precautions are observed regarding things like farm animals and sewage disposal. It is when there are a lot of people living in one place that create conditions susceptible to the spread of diseases.

[Greenbare Woods]

We need water purification these days because we have woven a much more antiseptic environment for ourselves in the modern world.  If we drink river water untreated or unsterilized we get sick.  I have the impression that did not apply to our ancestors 2 centuries ago.  They only had natural water supplies in the countryside.  But did it, I wonder?  Did they, in fact get equally sick equally often if they drunk natural water unboiled?  I have read often that for hundreds of years people didn't drink water much, they drunk a weak form of ale called small beer, that had been boiled and sterilised by brewing.  Anybody got a perspective on that?
John

You are so right, John.   We now experience a virtual epidemic of immune system problems caused by lack of normal exposure and normal occupation by symbiotic bacteria.   Diseases from Autism to Alzheimer's are suspected of being linked to excessive cleanliness.  Cutting edge medical/biological research on human gut bacteria is leading to things like "fecal transplant" to save some people from over cleanliness.  There is something like 100 dangerous bacteria we need to avoid, and tens of thousands of bacteria species we need to digest our food and operate our bodies.  We would all be better served if our environment weren't so clean and sterile.

[BlueTrain]

That hasn't been an overwhelming problem in places I've lived. Cleanliness may be next to godliness but sometimes it's next to impossible. But check with what your mother has to say on the subject.

[eyesup]

In most 3rd world rural communities, the people are carriers parasites. Gut worms, etc. If it gets bad enough, the body cannot compete. Parasites and bacteria must be killed by boiling or filtering.

At our church we have participated more than once with “The Raining Season” and “Living Water Intl.” to provide stand alone water filtration systems to rural people in Africa and Haiti. When the people came to present their program to us they said that in some places, the people would take clean filtered water from the unit and mix it with water they had just gathered, thinking that the clean water would purify the un-filtered water.

There is still an amazing lack of knowledge in some places. Clean water is more than life, it is liberating.

Duane

[eyesup]

If they are within the jurisdiction of any type of health department, ya gotta folla the rules! Just do the minimum to get the permit.

There is something like 100 dangerous bacteria we need to avoid, and tens of thousands of bacteria species we need to digest our food and operate our bodies.  We would all be better served if our environment weren't so clean and sterile.

Bob, your comment reminded me of a video I watched a few months ago. It’s long, almost an hour. I did it in parts, but it had some ideas I hadn’t heard before.

It’s sort of interesting: Let Them Eat Dirt.

I have known for years that we have beneficial gut and skin bacteria but had never heard of the effects that bacteria has on so many body functions. The term biome seems to apply to the overall human bacterial colony.

Duane

[BlueTrain]

Serious health risks are present when there is overcrowding and inadequate means for disposing of human waste. These days, those conditions are likely to occur in refugee camps. But historically, humans have tended to live in relatively crowded (or compact, to use another word) circumstances more often than not. New World Indians for the most part have lived as tribes and not generally out by themselves. Even to this day, people will live in villages instead of isolated homesteads in Europe, Asia and Africa. Usually satisfactory arrangements were made for waste disposal, although not necessarily what you would consider satisfactory. Also, humans lived closer to their farm animals, even to the extent of sharing the same building, at least in the winter. Rats didn't help, either.

We take so many things for granted today which only a few generations ago were seen as wonderful, modern improvements in daily life, such as municipal water systems that provide pure and inexpensive water. They are things that could be lost literally at the stroke of a pen.

[Greenbare Woods]

Bob, your comment reminded me of a video I watched a few months ago. It’s long, almost an hour. I did it in parts, but it had some ideas I hadn’t heard before.

It’s sort of interesting: Let Them Eat Dirt.
I have known for years that we have beneficial gut and skin bacteria but had never heard of the effects that bacteria has on so many body functions. The term biome seems to apply to the overall human bacterial colony.  Duane 

Good recommendation Duane. 

That is a very interesting video about cutting edge science.  I watched it a few months ago and then got the book, and then another book.  After two centuries of spreading fear of bacteria we are learning that most bacteria is necessary for good health.  They call the book, "Let Them Eat Dirt," but what they really mean is "Let Them Eat Shit."  They are finding that a healthy biome of gut bacteria can reduce epidemic diseases from autism to alzheimer's.  Living in an overly sterile world is creating generational health problems for "civilized" populations.

One thing I find frustrating is that their video and books focuses on raising healthy children while avoiding a discussion of improving bacterial health practices for us older people.   They mention that some hospitals are getting C-section babies off to a healthy start by smearing their faces with a mixture of mom's vaginal and anal discharge.   But what about us older people? 

After reading the available books on human biota and needed bacteria I have deliberately stopped my daily showers and gone to a hair wash shower every 2 days.  Even then I use soap sparingly, not at all on much of my body.  I deliberately don't wash hands after toilet use, a radical step toward, "let them eat dirt."   But my life does  not really have a variety of other people to share bacteria with.  Thirty or forty yeas ago I would meet nice women and share the practice of "going down on her" to use a polite description.  Now that we read about the health benefits of ingesting other gut bacteria it would seem to have been a very healthy way to enjoy friendships.  Now that I'm old I don't find women wanting to share so much any more.

I guess this is off topic from Orient Land Trust.   It reminds me of one time in about 1989 when my first wife and I invited a female friend back to our tent to share bodies with.  My wife got jealous because I was licking the other lady first, or something, and spoiled the evening.  Lots of memories of good times at OLT.   

Science:  Let them eat dirt. -->  Let them eat shit. -->  let them, and you, ingest and share gut bacteria.

Bob


   

[jbeegoode]

I brush my body and sweat. I have changed soap from an anti bacterial brand, Doc Bronner's product. I wash hair, armpits, and crotch. Wash with water after poop, when I can. Sweats and diet takes care of rough aromas. I amd naked, exposed skin most of the time. Skin breathing creates balance.

My inner biom gets mangled by antibiotics every few years and crappy food. I do what I can to source food grown from healthy tended organic soils. I eat raw foods, as I can. I like fermented foods, kombucha brews (one tastes like a good home brew! One like a rose wine, real yogurt. I don't drink from municipal water sources, they are horrid around here. I find that it is difficult to maintain a healthy gut these days. I also fast periodically, which tends to balance the gut bacteria, which is a ecology. This starves the bad bacteria that dominates by being fed crappy food that it likes. The fasting readjusts the ecological balance.

I don't go out of the country and drink the water, or eat the food washed in that water. "Don't drink the water" has been old popular advice since I was a kid in Mexico, but the locals thrive on it. Some types of Montezuma's Revenge are very serious.
Jbee