History Main / CoolClearWater

* [[ComicStrip/DykesToWatchOutFor Alison Bechdel's]] auto-bio comic ''ComicBook/FunHome'' mentions a river near her family's house whose sparkling beauty is due to pollution preventing any life in it. Similarly, sunsets at home were much more impressive before the clean air act.

It's best to assume that untreated water is unsafe to drink, particularly if it's passed a road, a village, or a forest. There are streams that have been filtered by mineral layers (more in some countries than in others), but generally they shouldn't be trusted without confirmation, preferably from a local who has drunk from it for many years. Even then, those people may have simply built up certain immunities. Even the purest-seeming mountain stream may be tainted with parasites like ''Giardia lamblia'', also known in Western Canada and the US as "beaver fever". No, not even the First World is immune.

* Averted in ''Fanfic/BreathOfTheWild'', ''Videogame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' adapted to novel form. As such, it follows the nature of a survival story, only without the AcceptableBreaksFromReality necessary to make a game playable. This includes Link's need to have water. It's not given much focus, but the narration mentions one time that Link needs to purify it in different ways in order for him to use it for drinking.

* Likewise, ''Series/{{Survivorman}}'' averts this and frequently mentions this trope when in places like Montana or other areas with clear, apparently clean streams. Though sometimes he still ends up drinking muddy water with no filtration besides his bandana. SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome occurs on a regular basis: Les often wound up in the hospital being treated for illnesses or parasites he contracted while filming an episode where he did this.

* The trope is subverted in the Marvel war comic ''comicBook/TheNam'' where the lead character on his first patrol in the bush of Vietnam is about to drink from a river and his experienced comrade stops and shows what he has to do to properly treat the water to make it fit for drinking. The end result is not ''palatable'' mind you, but safe enough.

* Averted in the ''VideoGame/{{Atelier}}'' series. You can find Fresh Water everywhere... but you only get it to a usable ''Pure'' Water state (which can, among other uses, be used for food or consumed for some hit points) if processed.
* Averted in the mod for ''[[{{VideoGame/Battlezone1998}} Battlezone]] 2'', ''Forgotten Enemies'', one of the planets, ''Spartacus'' has trace amounts of arsenic in its water despite looking clear in the missions and actually, has been wearing down on the filters that the EDF relied on. Corber mentions in one of the monologues that one of his fellow infantry men [[TooDumbToLive drank some of the unpurified water]] and died about an hour later.

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[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/233192_2.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Crystal clear lake water! Side effects include:\\
stomach cramps, diarrhea, parasites, and death.]]

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* An episode of ''Series/{{Monk}}'' had friends managing to convince a dehydrated Monk to drink from a stream. For once, Monk's paranoia may have been justified. That being said, he'd gain nothing from dying of dehydration because he was afraid of catching a waterborne disease. Kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

* Defied in ''Series/LoisAndClark''. Clark and Lois ended up stranded on a deserted island and Lois was about to drink from a pond. Clark used his microscopic vision on the water and saw that it had bacteria. He suggested that Lois try to drink somewhere else. The pond had been deliberately contaminated by the Villain of the Week, and Clark "finds" a better source of water by punching a hole in a nearby rock to produce an instant spring.
* An episode of ''Series/HawaiiFive0'' has an escaped convict with a couple of hostages stop to drink from a stream in a Hawaiian rain forest. Shortly after [=McGarrett=] and Chin come across the same stream, and [=McGarrett=] starts to take a drink, only to have Chin stop him and tell him the water is infested with parasites and will make him very sick, very quickly. Cut to convict and hostages... Normally it would be completely out of character for [=McGarrett=], a Navy SEAL who grew up on the Island, to make such a rookie mistake. It can be explained by the writers having to rewrite the episode to include Scott Cann's real-life leg injury. Since Danno couldn't have helped chase down the escapee and hostages using a cane in the rain forest, Chin accompanied [=McGarrett=]. The writers had to explain the sudden illness of the escapee and hostages, so that was left in with Chin, correcting [=McGarrett=].

* Most teams on ''Series/NakedAndAfraid'' choose a fire-making tool as one team member's single chosen survival item, and a few choose a watertight container or cooking pot as the other member's, specifically so they can boil water.
* On ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'', when Simmons is stranded on a desolate but sustaining planet, she encounters a small pool of water and gulps handfuls of it without remotely caring what might be in it. To be fair, she ''was'' dying of thirst at the time, and while something in the water does try to kill her, it was in a more direct external manner (Simmons wins and has dinner for the night).
* ''Series/BlakesSeven''.
** In "[[Recap/BlakesSevenS1E1TheWayBack The Way Back]]", Roj Blake goes outside the DomedCity for the first time and is encouraged to drink from a stream by a member of LaResistance. Blake doesn't like the taste much, even when it's pointed out that the water in the city has been recycled a thousand times and [[GovernmentDrugEnforcement dosed with suppressants to prevent rebellion]].
** In "[[Recap/BlakesSevenS2E4Horizon Horizon]]", Jenna's captor [[PetTheDog offers her a drink of water]]. She hesitates to drink it, fearing poison or drugs, so he assures her it's natural water from a stream. Jenna comments that it's likely full of lethal bacteria, but drinks anyway.
* Deconstructed on ''Series/GoodEats''. Alton explains that just because surface water ''looks'' clean (like in beer commercials, for example), doesn't mean it actually ''is'' clean. In fact, more often than not, it isn't, because animals leave droppings near the water source, runoff from farms and even people's lawns can get into the water supply, and sometimes {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s allow chemical waste to be dumped in or near the river (whether it's legal or not). Water treatment plants ''usually'' take care of the problem. As for ground water and how clean ''it'' is, that depends on how close to the surface it is. The higher up it is, the more likely it is to be contaminated. If, however, it's under bedrock and filtered through sediment, it almost always really ''is'' this trope.
* Subversions often appear up in medical-themed reality shows. Shows like ''Monsters Inside Of Me'' and ''Mystery Diagnosis'' have more than one episode about someone swimming in a lake and contracting a deadly illness.
* ''Series/TheFortyFourHundred'': Used to prove a point. One of Collier's followers uses her power to clean a local, infamously dirty river. Collier drinks out of it to demonstrate that it really is clean.
* ''Series/TheDailyShowWithTrevorNoah'' had a segment on "raw water," unprocessed water collected from a spring on a trail somewhere. A public health expert states that drinking from streams risks exposure to what correspondent Desi Lydic sums up as, "All ''VideoGame/TheOregonTrail'' diseases." It ends with the inevitable "Desi has dysentery" graphic.
* In ''Series/EscapeAtDannemora'', escaped prisoner Sweat tries to warn his fellow escapee Matt from drinking from a mountain stream to no avail: Matt later suffers crippling diarrhea.

* In ''VideoGame/SunsetOverdrive'', You give Dirk “Bora-Bora water” a luxury water brand that includes among others dissolved solids, Pathogens, Reversed reverse osmodified goats milk, MSG, MGS, MMSGSSM, and A shot of whisky “for flavor”.
* In ''VideoGame/LostInBlue'', at the beginning of the game, there's a freshwater river that has fish swimming in it, and your character comments that it looks safe to drink. There's also a small hole in a temple you have to go through that is apparently safe to drink from.
* The ''VideoGame/DarkCloud'' and ''VideoGame/DarkChronicle'' games feature Springs in the RandomlyGeneratedLevels which can both quench the character's thirst and replenish their HP. These springs can occur in the [[DownTheDrain Sewers]], in the middle of a [[TheLostWoods Forest]], in underground grottoes, in cliffside caves, in volcanic hot springs, and in palace fountains. At least the ones in volcanoes are boiled... never mind the acidity.

* In ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'', you are advised against drinking the water, because the [[PlanetLooters Combine]] put BrainBleach in it.

* In ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'', water which you can't see anything in is drinkable, but "murky" water, generally found in places without running water, isn't.
** DF is still rather odd about this (as of 31.18). One level of standing water (or 7/7 units) will be stagnant and spread mud and can't be filtered any number of pumps, but a well over it will yield pure water. Any water level 8/7 or higher will also be pure. Also, toxins won't spread from their tile, so the corpse of a poison-bleeding creature will poison a tile for at least a game year, but the water flowing from it will still be safe.
** Subverted in that water, while drinkable, is not an appropriate beverage for dwarves. Water is for all sorts of neat tricks, but dwarves who ''drink'' water become unhappy because it does not contain alcohol. It is a wonder that this game allows dwarves to even think of manufacturing waterskins that cannot be filled with alcoholic drink... a problem the [[http://lparchive.org/Dwarf-Fortress-Syrupleaf/Update%20139/ Syrupleaf]] LetsPlay ran into, incidentally. This has since been rectified, though you can still order your soldiers to only carry water [[VideogameCrueltyPotential if you really want to.]]
** Incidentally, polluted water won't actually ''harm'' your dwarves if they drink it, just cause an additional morale penalty. Washing an injured dwarf's wound out with it is another matter [[spoiler: And Armok help you if you get vampire blood in it!]]
* Averted in the ''VideoGame/{{Atelier}}'' series. You can find Fresh Water everywhere... but you only get it to a usable ''Pure'' Water state (which can, among other uses, be used for food or consumed for some hit points) if processed.
* Alluded to in ''VideoGame/GoldenSun1''; as he's leaving home Garet's siblings remind him not to drink from stagnant ponds, to which he replies indignantly that he knows that already. Subverted in that the only sources for water your characters actually drink (the oases in the Lamakan Desert are apparently just for frolicking in) are the Fountain of Hermes in the first game and the Lemurian fountain in the second, both of which explicitly have healing properties and are purified by Alchemy.
* Averted in the mod for ''[[{{VideoGame/Battlezone1998}} Battlezone]] 2'', ''Forgotten Enemies'', one of the planets, ''Spartacus'' has trace amounts of arsenic in its water despite looking clear in the missions and actually, has been wearing down on the filters that the EDF relied on. Corber mentions in one of the monologues that one of his fellow infantry men [[TooDumbToLive drank some of the unpurified water]] and died about an hour later.
* To get through the desert in ''VideoGame/KingsQuestVAbsenceMakesTheHeartGoYonder'', Graham will have to drink straight from the various oases scattered across the landscape (and can also get a drink from an abandoned well in the same area). The narrator comments "Ah! Life-giving water! Nectar of the gods!"
* In ''VideoGame/{{Cataclysm}}'', water has to be boiled or otherwise purified to avoid sickness. The water source also affects the relative odds of getting ill, with an indoor pool or even river being a cleaner source than drinking out of a toilet.
* In ''VisualNovel/LongLiveTheQueen'', there is background lore detailing this trope if the main character chooses to invest in the Lore stat. It reads as follows: "A Lumen once tried to lift the curse from an enchanted spring whose water was poisonous and glowed green. After dispelling the magic, she tasted the water and fell dead - the green glow was a not a curse, but a spell placed by a Lumen long before to warn everyone away from the spring's natural poison."
* Ponds in ''VideoGame/TheForest'' are filled with polluted water, which will damage your character's health and possibly make them sick. You can only obtain safe drinking water by catching rain in a water collector or boiling pond water.

* In ''VideoGame/ConquestsOfCamelot'', at one point Arthur has to traverse a desert. Partway through, his guide stops at a pool and encourages him to rest and drink up. Sharp-eyed players might notice a few suspicious clues, such as an animal skeleton nearby, your mule refusing to drink, and the guide likewise abstaining. Take a drink anyway and you're treated to a HaveANiceDeath scene with the guide looting Arthur's corpse.
* Played straight to an extreme in ''VideoGame/ArkSurvivalEvolved'': water in ponds and streams is drinkable. Water in caves full of spiders is drinkable. Water in the ''ocean'' is drinkable, and does not need desalination. Water in ''a murky bog full of diseased leeches'' is drinkable, and will not give you swamp fever. Water in [[OverlyLongGag the fatally-irradiated caves of Aberration is]]... you get the picture. The ocean case is lampshaded by Helena's notes on the Island, and is one of her clues that [[spoiler: the Island is an artificial environment]].
** In ''Genesis 2'', you can find a [[JustifiedTrope sump system]] at the bottom of the "ocean".
* ''VideoGame/MassEffectAndromeda:'' The pools of water on Kadara are a clear, tantalisingly inviting blue. They are also completely full of sulphur. Drinking them is not recommended, and before Ryder fixes the malfunctioning terraforming tech on the planet, even ''touching'' it burns straight through their armor.
-->'''Nakmor Drack:''' I bet I could drink it...\\
'''Dr. Lexi T'Perro:''' ''No'', Drack, no.

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* ''Webcomic/TheWanderingOnes'' averts this trope as well, since the writer is knowledgeable about wilderness survival, and puts his research into the strip.

* There's a minor RunningGag from the webcomic ''Buddy and Friend'' involving a contaminated well. Despite the well being surrounded by a CorpseLand, people still keep getting water from it-and promptly dying.
* In ''Webcomic/{{Awaken}}'', after traveling through a desert, Piras jumps right into a pond at the Merchants' Oasis... only to find out that horses poop in it.

* Stimpy from ''WesternAnimation/TheRenAndStimpyShow'' tells Ren not to drink the Cool Clear Water on a camping trip, because Ren will get beaver fever. The difference is the cartoon's version of the disease [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin literally turns you into a beaver]].

* An aversion, find their way into ''WesternAnimation/RockosModernLife''. The gang goes on a camping trip and Filburt refuses to drink from the stream water because "fish are dating in it."

* The WC Fields quote is delivered by Reggie Thistleton in a flashback from Woodhouse on ''{{WesternAnimation/Archer}}''.