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Desert_Captain's avatar
Desert_Captain
Explorer III
Oct 12, 2014

Another reason NOT to use the "Water Thief"

This was posted at the USFS Windy Hill CG at Roosevelt Lake but I have seen similar postings at a number of USFS CG's through the southwest. If a CG only has a few spigots scattered around, often without threads you might want to check the bulletin board before hooking up as it can and often will get you ejected from the campground. You really should not be using the water thief (the name says it all).



While this posting addresses health issues many of the more remote campgrounds also have very limited supplies of fresh water and the spigots were never intended for mass consumption by large RV's.

:C

104 Replies

  • Went through this at a campground in Rio Grande NFS recently. They replaced all the threaded spigots for "health concerns" and prohibited connecting. With an anti-siphon connection, there is no risk to the system. With common sense sanitization before use there is no risk from the klutz before you. After several letters to the manager of Rio Grande, they agreed and changed back this past summer. In the interim, the host kept a hose on his spigot for all to use. I suggest there is more risk of injury or harm from an elderly person trying to stand on a ladder juggling a 6 gallon water jug than from prudent use of spigots. They are used in public and commercial campgrounds across the nation and approved by local health departments.
  • Is using a spigot to fill a tank considered "connected"?
  • Yeap, it is going to cross contaminate here, but not in thousands of RV parks around the country! Maybe their water sucks rather than blows!
  • "Another reason"? I didn't know there was any reason. Please enlighten us.