Using Sawyer water filter in UK streams

[dafyddp]

I bought one of these water filters recently, with the aim of using it to top-up on longer rides  in the UK https://sawyer.com/products/sawyer-mini-filter/. My hesitancy though, is figuring out how remote a water source is needed to be relatively safe from pesticides and other man-made chemicals. Anyone else use one? I ride in the Midlands (Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, etc), and often come across small streams and my concern is whether the levels of agricultural chemicals is too much of a risk?

[Aushiker]

Can't help you on the UK water quality but I have a Sawyer water filter. I found that the bladders that they supplied where very poor quality, easily splitting at the seams. I believe this may have been addressed with newer bladders but having been burnt by Sawyer I am now using Evernew bladders which others have recommended.

Hopefully yours is a newer version with better quality bladders.

[Kim]

TBH, you have to be having a pretty bad day to be far from drinking water on a bike in most of the Midlands.  That said, I've been caught out on a hotter-than-expected Sunday afternoon when everything was shut.  I think I'd rather knock on a random door and beg water than bother carrying a filter on the off-chance that 1.5litres isn't enough.

For touring in more remote areas, sure.

[andibs]

I've used the Sawyer mini filter on multi day canoe trips using water from rivers and lochs and all been fine. Just have a walk upstream first and check there's nothing in the river (alive or not).  Try to use flowing water and not from Eddie's or sluggish flat spots

Andy

[TPMB12]

I would be wary in low levels or farmland. IIRC this filter does not filter virus' since it is just filtration so you would ideally need to use a chemical to destroy any virus' present. I once read in a walking magazine article that some pretty nasty bugs were found in several popular wild camping spots in the Lakes. That was high up in supposedly clean rivers and streams. Any farmland and you can have chemicals in the water too.

If you are in the hills (with say sheep farming areas such as fells) and see a free flowing stream then look upstream for some way and if free from sheep, toilet paper (seriously yes, people choose to pee and more right next to a waterway that may swell with rain to wash it away) then you should be ok. I used to drink traight from streams as a kid in the Lakes an on my few trips to the Peaks too. Some of my walking friends still do so but that is their choice.

Personally if cycling I would prefer to find a pub and ask for them to fill the bottle up before I take from any lowland stream or waterway. IF you choose to then I would suggest changing your filter to say an MSR purewater filter (filters most nasties out and even chemicals, uses chemicals to kill all bugs including virus pathogens then uses activated carbon to take the chemicals out. This is a relatively safe filter to use. There are filters out there that filter down to such a fine size that even a virus would not get through. As an indiction of the size I believe Sawyer filters at 0.1 microns but you need to have a pore size below 0.03 microns to take out virus IIRC. The effective filters work down to 0.001 microns but tend to be bulky bottles intended for extreme use in jungles or humanitarian missions.

[vantage]

I tested mine a few months ago just after the river outside my flat had subsided from all the flooding so god knows what kinda crap was in it. Aside from a bit of an iffy tummy for a couple hours I didn't die. It might be worth investing in water purification tablets as a boost to the sawyer.

[TPMB12]

I tested mine a few months ago just after the river outside my flat had subsided from all the flooding so god knows what kinda crap was in it. Aside from a bit of an iffy tummy for a couple hours I didn't die. It might be worth investing in water purification tablets as a boost to the sawyer.

I guess you know about floods washing out farms and as a result has a higher risk of catching Leptospirosis  and Weil's desease. Back in my kayaking days I was always advised that during spate/flood or very low water with static pools in eddies this was a risk. I know a few who got it and seriously not worth risking. Kidney issues lasted a while and one guy was in a coma for a few months and out of action for over 6 months. Ill on and off afterwards too.

If you do take water from suspicious sources you need to have true purification or microfiltration to something like 0.01 microns. Very few filters manage this so the better ones use chemicals (chlorine or similar) to neutralise the smaller pathogens. Then use activated carbon filters to take the chemicals out. A filter with an activated carbon filter element in is worth having even without a purification stage built in because you can treat the water with chlorine tablets first then filter it through this carbon filter to remove the chlorine and other chemicals.

Having said that I have used a filter similar to the sawyer one in the hills of the Lakes and Scotland too. However they were from freeling flowing mountain streams that are not flowing out of tarns and lochs (sources of pathogens). Plus I take the precaution of checking out upstream first to make sure it is clean of nasties (dead sheep, toilet paper, faeces, etc.). I know of at least one favoured Outward Bound School wildcamping spot where toilet paper is like Himalayan prayer flags (sorry if this offends anyone) flapping in the wind in any depression or stream re-entrant that could offer privacy. Lowland or near road streams I woud not want to take from personally even with a sawyer filter.

[vantage]

"I guess you know about floods washing out farms and as a result has a higher risk of catching Leptospirosis  and Weil's desease"


I do now 

[TPMB12]

BTW the Weil's desease is a notifiable desease. If you get it the public health guys get notified and they trace the source of infection back. I know of one section of a river that is ideal for swimming that has a Weil's desease warning sign because infection has been recorded there. Low level in farmland (sheep and deer). Also a popular cycling area so perhaps a filter wielding cyclist could have topped up there and got ill.

Sorry if I lectured it a bit but I know from stories told about kayaking friends about mutual friends who got it. The stories are scare stories but they are true. My family knew that if I got flu after kayaking I was to get to A&E or the doctor just in case. My Dad once got trained up in things like this because he worked once in a new build water treatment and floodwater handling scheme. A mjor flood and sewage treatment project IIRC and that meant he carried a special ID with a Weils desease warning on the back and his details on the front, including next of kin and employer details.

All this and you still have the simple tummy bug, hepatitis, etc to worry about too. Water is essential but a killer. So the solution is to not drink it but do like the middle ages and drink beer instead. Seriously countries with a truly great and varied beer culture (Belgium and England) all had a series of laws and byelaws surrounding replacing water with beer. In Belgium it was the church that brewed it for the people. England had a system where workers on the land were paid with a certain amount of beer per day. Basically enough to get most of us well on the way to being legless and kids got that much too!! Mind you I believe the beer they drank was a weak one not like the Trappist beers from BElgium these days.

[Jon P]

I used to have and use a pump filter on backpacking trips but never bother with it now - I often drink brown water and reckon that so long as it's boiled it should be OK - last week, when taking a lunch break between Gunnerside and Bolton Castle, I chose the pool which DIDN'T have animal stools in to draw my tea water from - maybe I've just been lucky so far!

[quixoticgeek]

I have a sawyer mini filter, I am weary of any stream in farm land. Woodland tends to be ok. OS 1:25k maps mark springs so you can get a good idea of where the water has come from.

Whilst I don't often filter from streams, I have filtered the water from cattle troughs. On some (not all), you can access the ball cock valve that keeps the trough topped up. I fill up directly from this (not the standing water in the trough). I did filter a rather still pond in a woodland once, It tasted ok, but it was still quite stained with tannins.

If in doubt, find another source.

J