well said.
Clearly you have not looked very far. First go to a library. Look for even the most basic textbook on Ichthyology. You will QUICKLY find that soap is extremely lethal to gill tissue. Once that tissue is damaged the fish dies. I now understand why you like the AMC so much. Yeah, you looked hard.Originally Posted by weary
You garbage spewers can justify anything. "My candybar wrapper is returning to nature from whence it came". "I let my dog crap on your sleeping bag because my dog is an animal and that is his nature" You all know soap does not belong in someone elses drinking water (to say nothing of nature's habitat). Yet you don't give a damn. In fact, you are far worse than those who leave solid garbage around. At least then the few of us who care can pack it out. Wash in your own water supply, scum bags.
Maybe it's just me, but I have a hard time worrying about someone that uses stream water to clean up after I've seen so many other animals (horses, dogs, deer, moose, birds, etc.) using the stream like it's their personal toilet. And, no matter how high I climb, there always seems to be something upstream contaminating the water! I figure that if my water filter can remove that crap from the water, a little soap should be the least of my concerns.
Humans are alleged to be smarter and more responsible than dogs. Clearly that is not true. I cannot believe I have to argue this point.
I was just making the point that I am not concerned my own well-being when someone uses a stream to clean up. However, I am concerned about the impact to the environment and the creatures that live in the stream. As a result, you will never see me using soap anywhere near the stream.
Maybe I am at least as smart as some dogs?
It depends on how you bathe
To me, it's clearly not right to bathe in a stream using soap.
I don't think there's anything wrong with swimming in a stream that's deep enough to swim in. And if it's ok to swim in, its ok to bathe in without soap. Just don't bathe DIRECTLY upstream from a place you expect folks to be taking drinking water. (It's more a matter of being polite.)
No running water of any size is pure.. The world is crawling with animals from the microscopic, to moose and bigger. THEY don't care where they bathe/drink/relieve themselves, and they have been visiting every body of water, regardless of size.
SOAP in streams and springs..that an easy one..NO
now can we get on to more IMPORTANT things like cellphones , trail magick and MJ on the trail...
"I'd rather kill a man than a snake. Not because I love snakes or hate men. It is a question, rather, of proportion." Edward Abbey
You had to bring up cell phones. Now Weary is going to tell me he hasn't found any evidence that you can't use them under water while shaving.
Nor have I really found any. But in the interests of full disclosure, I probably should report that some scientists have found that german cockroaches can be killed with household detergents, though the study didn't give the required concentration.
Also I ran across a paper in which it was claimed that eating out of washed, but unrinsed dishes could result in soap scum dissolving the mucous lining of the stomach, causing upset. The author's advice? If a dish tastes soapy, rinse it before using.
This won't change my activities in the woods, because I don't wash either myself or my dishes in streams near trails, or where I am not familiar with the downstream conditions, out of deference to those who object to the practice.
But I continue to believe that the harmful effects of soap have been greatly exaggeration.
Weary
I am a very experienced aquarist and have had as many as 200 individual aquariums under my care at one time. Yes, you are right, soap is very damaging to gill tissue, however it is all a matter of how much soap we are talking about relative to the volume of water the fish is in. I have seen a single drop of dish washing detergent added to an aquarium holding aprox. 10 gallons of water do no harm to the fish in the aquarium. Remember that this is an aquarium, the water in the tank is not being constant replaced with water from upstream as it is in a stream or river. Also remember that the aquarium will typically not have the same variety of microbes which can break down the soap. So, I find it hard to believe, based on my experiences, that a very small quantity of biodegradable soap in a stream could do any damage. However I strongly discourage anyone from doing this because it it became acceptable we could find ourselves dealing with large quantities of soap when everyone on the trail started adding their "small" quantities to the streams.
As far as just people sitting or lounging in rivers and streams, nature has designed systems to deal with this sort of thing and it doesn't really bother me in the slightest. The same isn't true for more static small bodies of water such as ponds as these environments aren't able to flush themsevles out as easily. So look at the flow rate of the water you are thinking about hopping into, if it isn't moving you might want to stay out.
ever heard of algae blooms and excess growth and not just becasue of phosphates....get real ..you should not be washing with soap in mtn streams...it is so easy to haul a little water and wash away from the stream ... it a no brainer.
"I'd rather kill a man than a snake. Not because I love snakes or hate men. It is a question, rather, of proportion." Edward Abbey
Phosphates can be one of the factors that contribute to algae blooms, no doubt about it, but they aren't the sole reason for algae blooms. Furthermore I doubt you could find any hiker on the AT carrying a soap that had appreciable amounts of phosphates in it. So the phosphates arguement, while it would have been highly appropriate several years ago, is pretty weak now.
But as I said in my first post, no one should be using soap in a stream, there is no reason to and if it was an acceptable practice we could easily wind up with enough soap in the water to cause a real problem, I doubt that problem would be from phosphates however. I don't disagree with you at all on keeping soap out of our streams and rivers, I just doubt that the reason for keeping the soap out is realistic.
I see nothing wrong with jumping in naked on a hot day, especially if you're female.
But soap, I dunno about that. Use sand and gravel from the stream to wash yourself.
what about a river?
is that any different, whatwith the volume of water and all.
Except for coastal places, virtually every significant-sized community in the nation dumps it's treated sewage into a river. The sewage is treated, essentially by creating artificial streams and rivers. Oxygen is stirred into the wastes, encouraging naturally occurring microscopic bugs to eat the wastes. This identical process occurs when pollutants like soap are placed directly in mountain streams and rivers, except that the bugs and unedible (to the bugs) parts of the waste stream are then filtered out of the treatment plant to be burned, buried or, in some places like Maine, spread on farm fields, before the rest of the bug-digested waste is dumped in the river.
Since no treatment plant removes 100% of biodegradeable soap, and body wastes, virtually all rivers have a healthy slug of the such things eventually anyway. A fairly major river flows past my house. It receives effluent from a half dozen paper mills, hundreds of stores, offices and other businesses, and several hundred thousand households. The river abounds in mackerel, smelt, striped bass, sturgeon, and scores of other fish life. All seem to be prospering.
Weary
a peck before you go...
If it's blistering hot (a'la '02) my kids and I will have a "pits&tits" bandanna scrub downstream from the obvious water-take. Then we'll get water. I know what a filter is -- I even carry one: a McNett "straw" -- about an ounce. It's cute, and I've vowed to use it sometime. So anywho, why do people who do not filter/treat their water need to read this thread?
Do you swim in a public pool? Ocean beach? Pond? Ewwwwww!
Do you know that along with that 3 oz bear crap over there, there are TONS of mouse turds, beetle burp-up, vole vomit, catepillar piles, locust bodies, raccoon hairballs, rotting fruits, gel-ed fungii, moose snot and magot-rippling bird carcuses ALL OVER the water table? There's ALOT more of what you don't see than what you do see, yet you seemed to survive without even knowing about it. Biotically speaking, stray skin cells is the *least* of your worries.
Yes, I swim in pools, love the ocean and believe that I have now been in almost every single pond and lake on the AT. Even the ones where you get leeches on you, I could care less. Your stray skin cell ARE the least of my worries. I have worked for the food industry in the past and am very aware of the mouse turds we eat on a daily basis, I tested for them. There is a huge difference between what is naturally found in our food and water and what human pigs intentionally put there. One you cannot help, one you can. I am sure you use the same excuse for leaving your garbage on the trail.
I also would like to see the practice of washing with soap in streams stopped. There may be no evidence that it is harmful, but it just seems to me that anything we, as hikers, can do to keep our play area clean, we should do it. If we all get into the habit of dumping soap in the stream, what will be next? There are more people using the trails every year and we should be setting a good example. Soap up and rinse away from the water, please; it's not so much an environmental concern, really, it's the idea that we will be getting lazy and will find another poll years from now asking if it's okay to throw something else in the water. (flame suit on...)
Greg P.
I grew up on the Hudson river. At that time it was purely an open sewer. The smell alone was deadly. Under your philosophy it would still be that way. In fact, that is exactly how it got that way. Every little Weary out there said, "Hey my little soap won't do any harm". Again, keep your garbage out of the water, you lazy........, it's not that hard.
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