Drinking water in old mining areas

[JoshK]

Obviously a lot of places in the cascades were ripped apart to mine for various things a century ago. Are there any recommendations on drinking stream or snow melt water from these areas? Would crap still be present in the water?

[Alasdair]

Dont drink the water if it appears to be comming out of the mine shaft, through tailings piles, or running throught the mine site. Go up hill a bit and you should be fine. The worst thing you can do is stir up the sediments in the bottom of the water. This is where nearly all of the nasty stuff will be. look for an area with high water flow with big rocks on the bottom and you will be fine drinking it.

[Alasdair]

Oh and if you are filtering then there really is not likely to be any problem, as there are likley to be very few disolved metals in the water, unless you are drinking water that is comming out of a mine shaft or a spring near it.

[JoshK]

OK, that's good to know. I figured it wasn't a huge deal but thought it would be interesting to know as I almost never filter my water. I'd rather not find out ten years down the road that I gave myself cancer or something

[mtn_mouse]

I have heard differently. The typical backpacking filter will filter out giardia, and microorganisms of a certain size (in microns, 25 I think) but will not filter out dissolved minerals, solids, etc. A filter for example will not filter out salt from sea water. So I would think any mine water with heavy metals in them would always be dangerous to drink.

[marylou]

I'm with Mouse on this one. I don't think microfilters remove heavy metals.

 

Do we have a scientist in the house who can confirm or deny this? Some of them there heavy metals are NOT good for ya, nope, not at all.

[catbirdseat]

The water coming out of the Mystery #3 adit near Monte Cristo stains the rock a lovely orange color. I would recommend against drinking it. It's full of arsenic.

[Alasdair]

I did not say that filters will remove disolved metals, THey wont. But they will filter out the undisolved sediments that are much more likely to be a problem.

[Alasdair]

I'm with Mouse on this one. I don't think microfilters remove heavy metals.

 

Do we have a scientist in the house who can confirm or deny this? Some of them there heavy metals are NOT good for ya, nope, not at all.

 

I am a scientist, and I can confirm this. Heavy metals is a crappy term for them also. It refers to just about anything. Toxic metals and Metaloids is the correct termanology.

 

To put it simply dont drink water around a mine site.

 

If you do not have a choice, use a filter to filter out possible undisolved solids, and find an area of surface water that is not comming out of the ground or a mine shaft and is not discoulored and drink that. Better yet, go thirsty and continue walking.

[Bug]

You could have a partner drink it then drink their urine. This was a common process in ancient Europe to provide the best experience of the effects of the Aminita Muscaria. The first drinker's liver and kidneys filter out the sickening toxins. But why would anyone consider drinking poison at all?

[willstrickland]

I deal with these issues in my profession and spent five years doing Section 401 Clean Water Act enforcement.

 

Depending on the area and what they were mining, the pollutants of concern could be any of a number of things..all of them nasty. Arsenic is one common pollutant in mine tailings. Others are various heavy metals, and the mine drainage tends to be very acidic.

 

Some extraction techniques used in gold mining use a cyanide solution which is perc'ed through the discarded tailings, and collected...naturally not all of it is collected.

 

Nasty shit to say the least.

 

Filtering with a common backpacking filter isn't going to do you much good. Better to move on to another water source.

[Dan_Harris]

As Will said it depends on what was being mined. A couple of weeks ago I went for a hike and passed through an old abandoned mining town. As I drove through I noticed signs saying the area was under audio and video surveillance. Once I got home I found out why, it is a Super Fund Site for mercury mining. Thankfully I carried all my water with me. It also was an asbestos mining area. There are warning signs of naturally occurring asbestos in the area. Incredibly there dirt bikes all over the place kicking up all kinds of dust

[marylou]

Hey, thanks a lot for the helpful information. Common sense, yes, but good info nonetheless.

[JoshK]

I am a scientist, and I can confirm this. Heavy metals is a crappy term for them also. It refers to just about anything. Toxic metals and Metaloids is the correct termanology.

 

Arsenic is one common pollutant in mine tailings. Others are various heavy metals, and the mine drainage tends to be very acidic.

 

hehe...

[Dru]

[willstrickland]

In the regulatory field, "heavy metals" typically refers to a few specific commonly occuring substances: Copper, lead, chromium, cadmium, mercury, nickel, and arsenic (actually a metaloid), and several other less frequently occuring ones: selenium, beryllium, antimony, thallium, barium.

 

While in lab science circles it may not be a commonly used term, in environmental pollutant regulation (as in at the EPA) the term is used frequently and understood to mean these substances which are commonly monitored under NPDES permit regulations.

[marylou]

Well, in the ART world, we use a lot of paint that has what Will calls "heavy metals" as part of the pigment composition....and that shit's bad for you.

 

I don't much care what we call it, so long as we agree on what it is. Which apparently we have.

 

Or you can just drink your partner's pee, if either you or your partner is, well, thick.

[Dru]

jordop can tell you all about drinking lead based paint

[chirp]

Or you can just drink your partner's pee, if either you or your partner is, well, thick.

Drank my own urine inadvertantly when I worked at Devils Tower in 1987, seemed pretty basic and it would have definitely benefitted from a Crystal Light packet or two.