Wetlook World Forum

Water quality will depend on location - (as has already been said) if homeless bums have easy access to a fountain, water quality will be questionable.  I can see both points of Victor and Ngawa - if I got turned off by the water quality, I might pass the chance to have fun, but then, fun is very enjoyable, maybe worth some sneezes/ear infections later?  I don't know, I would say my immune system is above average, so although I might be fine in "questionable" water, someone else (like my girlfriend) might end up terribly sick, and then the aftermath would not be so great.

So basically, you have two hazards: irritant (red burning eyes, etc from cholorine, or uric acid/"piss") and microbial (bacteria to cause ear infections, etc).  Most likely, it would be a challenge to find two fountains which had water treatments *EXACTLY* the same...unless the two fountains were cared for by the same person.  Environment would certainly effect water quality (vegitation debris, temperature extremes etc).  And then there is just pure "feel" like what Ngawa said.  In downtown Memphis (tennessee) there is one pretty nice fountain but I saw a homeless woman standing under one of the jets soaking herself (not too big a deal) and then fill up a water bottle...I guess she expected to get thirsty later?  I don't know, I might have let myself get soaked in that fountain, but seeing her fill that water bottle and the thought that she might drink it later sort of turned me off...and that there were other homeless people wandering around that area.  On the other hand, Memphis has "mud island" which is basically a muesem focused on the Mississippi river.  There is a very shallow (1-5 inches max/3-15cm) reproduction of the entire mississippi river, which itself does not look very good for wet fun, but at the very end, this "mini-river" empties into a very large basin that represents the gulf of mexico.  It is almost like a large swimming pool, except that it only looks about 3 feet (1 metre) deep.  Water quality?  Not so good, but not *TOO* bad either...  one big plus - no homeless people around.  It does not look like the water is "treated" in any way, but then they don't expect to need to...  I'm sure "security" would kick you out pretty quick, but an "accidental" dip seemed like it might be tolerated.  The water smelled okay...    

Oh yeah, one thing I usually do is dip my hand into the water and then smell the water. (if the situation allows it)  Although I've never been totally disgusted by the smell, if for any reason I didn't like the smel of the water, then I would probably pass on the opportunity.  Also, if I saw or "knew" that the water had gotten contaminated, that would probably turn me off.