Veld drinking water not so clean and fresh

Fresh water does not mean clean water. It is merely distinguished from salt water or sea water.

To be clean in daily human usage terms it commonly has to appear clear and be free enough from chemicals and bacteria to be safe to drink. The latter criterion is often thought about while lifting the glass without any recourse to proper determination of the fact.

Pure water containing only hydrogen and oxygen does not exist in nature, hardly in the laboratory and never in the kitchen. Thirst improves the grade of available water; extreme thirst does this faster than a linear rate to the extreme of devil may care potability.

The first world sells water of higher purity, or accompanied by such claims pure in marketing, not in water. Poverty and population density necessitate acceptance of lower and variable water standards.

Animals, especially those in the wild may have a look and a sniff, drinking anyway, much less fussy than people. Their stomachs cope better with borderline clean water than those of people, especially where standards of water purification have reduced people’s capacity for coping with given impurities or the amount of impurity present in their drinking water. An adult may be able to drink water that the infant can’t, the dog having more options for quenching thirst than its human friend (and vice versa but of a different ilk).

In the bush one can strain water for removing bigger particles of dirt, boil it to remove bacteria and viruses but not chemicals. Purification to decent standards is a highly complex process involving the removal and prevention of many substances to a level of avoiding disease and defying detection.

Health being a complex issue and taste a variable one, the debate on adequate water standards is never quite resolved. Crystal clear mountain streams flowing fast through dense, undisturbed indigenous vegetation and free from industrial contamination occur in a small and reducing part of the lands where people live on earth.

Global warming and ferocious storms reduce both mass and diversity of the rooted plants that filter the water more naturally than the local municipal purification plant, where that may be present and functioning correctly.

The mantra of clean water being a human right holds only as long as society has sufficient knowledge, resources and organisation.