>As we all know, electric current will follow any given path to ground.
Correct - follow each path in inverse proportion to the resistance of that path.
>Differences in potential is the key word here I believe.
Absolutely! And proper bonding is supposed to minimize those differences to a harmless point.
>With a baked out or non existent ground rod and a broken/disconnected neutral you have isolated your water line once again from grnd. Although it is isolated from grnd it is also isolated from the source.
I don't follow.
>The path would be someone that touches the water line or its connected fixtures and is touching a ground.
Can you be specific? What ground?
Why is this ground not bonded to the water pipe via a copper conductor?
>But what if that person was downstairs on a concrete floor, barefooted, and touches that line?
This is why I like having the concrete or dirt floor bonded as well.
>Or if that person is standing outside barefooted and reaches for the spigot (which is bonded)?
No harm done. The earth is baked so basically no current flows.
>There are many instances that a person can be grounded.
Yes, but if proper bonding is done, the person is never more grounded than anything else he touches.
However, the outside spigot is a problem.
Code should require a GE within 18" of an outdoor metallic spigot. That way if the earth becomes damp at the spigot, it will become damp around the GE. And the GEC should be bonded to the spigot preferably from indoors.
>The scenario I am using has made the waterline just as energized as any ungrounded conductor!
But the UGCs are not as energized since they don't have a metallic return path.
If the earth is baked out as you say, then electricity trying to return through a human also has to go through that baked out earth too. If current can't return via a metal rod 8' in the ground, then why will it return via a human? The human just adds a few thousand more ohms to the path.
>bonded or unbonded a hazard could exist either way. Which would be the most likely to occur?
Unbonded. The only time that there is a hazard with them bonded is when the neutral has broken and the person is standing on wet ground holding an outdoor metallic spigot far from the GEs, and that is relatively rare by comparison. If the pipes weren't bonded, many more faults would go undetected - the bird on the wire effect, where metallic objects are like the bird.
The obvious solution is to use more plastic for the water pipes and drains.
And you also make the case for why I like to see panels and meter bases bonded to whatever I am standing on when I have to touch them.
Indoor ground rods or plates make sense to me.
