As a as seasonal volunteer with the US Forest Service I have a little more nuanced view: In the area I help out at there two big things on the long list of causes for the FS to stop showing water as potable.
First, water quality standards have been tightened over the years so some natural sources of water, which are as good or bad as they've ever been, now fall below revised quality standards. My personal view is those particular sources are still safe for me but liability would keep me from recommending them to others. Second, with reduced staffing and budgets, there are water sources which are no longer being tested and therefore cannot be shown as potable by the FS. The water may still be perfectly good. Because presence of water, even if of dubious quality, is important. It seems to me that something more than a binary value is needed. Maybe potable, non_potable and potability_unknown. A reason for the non-potable would be nice too. I can filter and disinfect water with a field kit but I can't remove toxic minerals and this is important to know when traveling in the area. Cheers, Tod On Nov 12, 2014, at 4:16 PM, johnw wrote: > in the late 1980’s, they put non-potable signs on many springs in national > parks because of the uncertainty of bacteria in the water (from horse poop), > though people had been drinking from them since the parks creation (and > earlier). > > There are places where access to water via spring or other unknown potability > could potentially be important, and marking springs that are unsigned as to > potability might be a good idea. This comes down to the same argument as the > maxheight argument - do you tag that there is no sign/info saying it is > potable or unpotable, or do you just leave it completely untagged? > > As a comparison, people here in Japan assume potability - water coming down a > stream in the mountains is usually drunk by everyone - there are even garden > hoses left for people to fill up bottles on the side of the road, though it > maybe downstream from some human works (a flower farm, a ski resort), whereas > when hiking in the sierras in California, we assume everything is unpotable > because of horse poop bacteria contamination from the trail riders (which are > almost non-existant in Japan). > > It might come down to a regional thing - knowing that the water source is > unsigned would give me pause in California, and be completely useless in > Japan. > > javbw > >> On Nov 13, 2014, at 7:44 AM, Warin <61sundow...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> On 12/11/2014 8:34 PM, tagging-requ...@openstreetmap.org wrote: >>> Message: 5 >>> Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 09:06:15 +0100 >>> From: Pieren <pier...@gmail.com> >>> To: "Tag discussion, strategy and related tools" >>> <tagging@openstreetmap.org> >>> Subject: Re: [Tagging] Tagging Digest, Vol 62, Issue 31 >>> Message-ID: >>> <capt3zjr3gsqafyxewxvnuyc2n_7tr-git3jpuortmauf2a1...@mail.gmail.com> >>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 >>> >>> On Wed, Nov 12, 2014 at 8:50 AM, Mateusz Konieczny <matkoni...@gmail.com> >>> wrote: >>>> > No, unknown should be tagged as unknown. Even better - not tagged. >>> +1 We don't tag what is unknown. Pierre >> >> 'We' know there is water there. That water can be used. >> >> If you can only chose between potable and non-potable, then you should chose >> non-potable. Filtering and treating non-potable water makes it potable .. I >> do this when in remote areas for my safety, particularly if I'm uncertain of >> the quality of the water. In some cases acess to water can be a life saver - >> thus it should be mapped no matter what the quality. >> >> ================= >> Note change in Subject title - my appoliges for my error there. >> _______________________________________________ >> Tagging mailing list >> Tagging@openstreetmap.org >> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging > > _______________________________________________ > Tagging mailing list > Tagging@openstreetmap.org > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
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