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swimming and not swallowing the water (especially if you don't swim with your face underwater) would present a minimal risk, if any.

Not exactly.  Compare drinking a glass of water, taking gulps of water but spitting them all out, and not putting the water from the glass in your mouth at all.  Obviously there is some additional risk taking gulps from not taking anything, but taking gulps if far less dangerous than drinking.  With gulps, something in the water does have the opportunity to go through your system.

Obviously, not ever putting your head in the water is a different story then normal swimming.  And normally when people swim, their mouth is not tightly shut (if not wide open) so water goes in.  Yet millions of people swim in lakes far less clean then CC lakes without prompting warnings from health officials.  That indicates the risk is minimal unless the lake is very polluted.  And I have no doubt using untreated water to wash/rinse dishes is safer then swimming.

As some have indicated before, there is a huge problem with basing conclusions on anecdotal evidence.  Maybe those who have never gotten sick have just been lucky.  Maybe those that did get sick did so not because they drank water from the center of a lake but because they had a quick cup of swamp water or got infected from dirty hands touching something on land.

To me it is clear.  Drinking from safe locations is at least pretty safe, so whether one filters or not is a matter of personal choice as to whether that minimal risk is acceptable.  Worrying about swimming, wash/dish water, etc is (in my opinion) paranoia (unless the water is very skanky).