Do ya' wonder what THIS is?

The picture on the left is the prop wash while going through the Dismal Swamp and the picture to the right is foam that accumulates by the lock by-pass. We asked the lock master about these things expecting him to say it was so utterly polluted they would never have an opportunity to correct it. To the contrary, this is what he told us (and I haven't looked it up on the Internet to validate this information yet so we pass along just what he said). The water supply, he said, comes from Artisian wells which emanate from the Virginia Mts. and takes somewhere between 4 to 5 years before it gets to the Dismal Swamp. It's the cleanest water on earth, potable and almost made it to the moon by NASA. The foam is tanic acid from the peat moss bogs which are thousands of acres. It cannot grow bacteria and you could leave it in a barrel for years and what hadn't evaporated could still be usable for drinking. He'd been operating the lock for 14 years and is soon to begin a barge business where people can experience the Dismal Swamp without risk to their personal boats. Anyone want to venture a guess as to whether or not we attempted to grab a glass and test out his theory? I think NOT!