"Terryc" wrote in message
...
0tterbot wrote:

i feel confident that the massive majority of water in australia is fit
to drink (including the crunchy water from my dam,

As someone who bicycle toured through great areas of this country, I felt
that way in the 70's, but now I am much more caustious.

:-)
that's because you're more informed, not because anything has really changed
much ;-)

i don't disagree with anything you've said whatsoever - my point is only
that if it's "safe" to breathe the air & grow crops in (for e.g.) sydney,
the rainwater must also be "safe" because all the systems are connected, not
seperate. shrug if the rainwater's not safe to drink (& while i'd not feel
entirely keen to be drinking sydney rainwater as compared to mine here, i'd
still logically consider it as safe as the tap water, seeing as how it's
essentially the same stuff!!) then it mustn't be "safe" to actually live
there, either.

my point is that ultimately, it's exceedingly rare for any water anywhere in
australia to be likely to make one sick in the short term (which i suspect
is all that councils were talking about - they're probably not talking about
multi-generational damage to dna or anything like that). in the long term,
we all know now that all of us have chemicals in our bodies & in other
systems which shouldn't be there, and might be harmful, which we didn't put
there ourselves and would never choose to have in a million years. however,
panicking about it now won't help either - it doesn't achieve anything. i'm
pleased that this and related issues are finally getting the notice they
deserve. big issues aren't served well by dim-witted local councils, though
g

snip

I've taken to filtering everything these days.

right, but you don't filter your soil or the veggies you grow, because you
can't. you're making a net benefit to your household and everyone else in
the world by the garden being there, though. and i think that is the more
important & more positive thing.

honestly, if people in cities don't want to drink their rainwater, that's
fine by me. but, it seems an odd distinction on balance. shrug

one other thing i do find annoying (not about YOU ;-) is water-panic in the
legislative populace. grey water is the main one - people seem to treat the
subject with an element of near-hysteria i find frankly mystifying. rain
water comes second. i was interested to read recently that one MUST have a
flush-diverter for "safe" rainwater. we don't have one of those (although i
do want one, to keep the tank cleaner, but we don't have one yet). but our
water tastes great, doesn't make us sick, and doesn't make guests sick (any
effects we're immune to through exposure would show up in a guest, yes?) and
is as clear as a bell. thousands of years' worth of rainwater drinkers would
be mystified to discover they "needed" a flush diverter all along, wouldn't
they ;-)

i think the truth of things is that once there's a "product" where none
previously existed, the combination of capitalism and fear of litigation
makes powerful people lose their minds. one example of this would be microbe
warnings on potting mix. i don't doubt there are people out there who use
potting mix while wearing a hazmat suit and gas mask - yet these same people
very likely muck about in the dirt without any "protections" at all, despite
that garden soil clearly contains (amongst other things) legionella, e-coli,
tetanus, etc not to mention the possibility of heavy metals, other
carcinogens & christ knows what. the only difference is that you can't sue
the earth if you got cat-scratch fever or tetanus, and you can't attach a
warning to a back yard. :-) if polar bears are contaminated with coolants,
one can only speculate what we & our soils are contaminated with - so
worrying about city rainwater _in particular_ doesn't really rate when you
think about it imo.

this is the sort of broader theme i was pursuing in my statement. by all
means we must always take care of ourselves & others. equally, worrying
excessively about small pieces of a bigger puzzle just doesn't help anyone.
fixing them helps, though - which is a broad thing to be doing, not a
micro-managing, fuss-pot, local-council thing. i really don't think we
disagree here, terry!
kylie