Flush or Don't Flush? : Man Urinates Treated Water Reservoir, City Flushes 8M Gal.

• OneBuckeye

  

  http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/06/21/man-urinates-in-water-city-flushes-8m-gallons/
  
  
  

  PORTLAND, Ore. -- Call it the big flush.
  
  Because a 21-year-old man was caught on a security camera urinating into a city reservoir, Oregon's biggest city is sending 8 million gallons of treated drinking water down the drain.
  
  Portland officials defended the decision Monday, saying they didn't want to send city residents water laced, however infinitesimally, with urine.
  
  Public health officials say, however, that urine is sterile in healthy people and that the urine in the reservoir was so diluted -- perhaps a half pint in millions of gallons -- that it posed little risk.
  
  
  
  Some people in the city, in the suburbs and around the world called the flush an overreaction, especially since animals such as ducks contribute waste routinely and, sometimes, die in the water.
  
  "More than 1 billion people worldwide do not have reliable access to clean drinking water, and here we are tossing away nearly 8 million gallons of water just to appease the ignorant residents who believe their tap water will otherwise turn yellow," read one comment posted on The Oregonian's Website.
  
  Water from the city's five open air reservoirs, all in parks, goes directly to customers. The reservoirs are due to be replaced by underground storage within a decade, a result of federal requirements.
  
  The reservoirs distribute water that flows from glaciers on Mount Hood. It is treated before it goes to the reservoirs for distribution, and then goes directly to consumers.
  
  The reservoirs are drained twice a year for cleaning, and workers have found animal carcasses, paint cans, construction material, fireworks debris and even the plastic bags people use to scoop up after their dogs, said David Shaff, administrator of the city water bureau.
  
  Even so, Shaff said, the yuck factor was the primary reason for the decision to drain the 8 million gallons, at a cost of less than $8,000 to treat it as sewage.
  
  "Nobody wants to drink pee, and I don't want to deal with the 100 people who would be unhappy that I'm serving them pee in their water," he said. Shaff said the security cameras also showed something that's still unidentified was thrown in the water, heightening concern about potential risks.
  
  City Commissioner Randy Leonard, who is in charge of the water bureau, defended the decision, citing a potential public health risk. He said he worried about the possibility of chlamydia or AIDS from blood in urine.
  
  "I'm for taking the most conservative approach," he said.
  
  Dr. Gary Oxman, the county health officer, said the risk was so close to nil that it falls in the "never say never" range. Even with the uncertainty over an object thrown in the water, "that's still a very small risk," he said.
  
  The young man, Josh Seater, told KATU-TV he'd been drinking, was with friends and thought that the reservoir was a sewage treatment plant. He said he felt guilty instantly, and then security guards arrived.
  
  "I knew I did wrong when I did it," he told the station.
  
  In addition to the sewage charge, Shaff said, the flushed water is worth $28,000.
  
  The Mount Hood watershed that supplies the city is brimming this spring, with 8 million gallons flowing through it about every half hour.
  
  "If I lived in Texas, I might have had a different response," he said.
  
  
  
  Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/06/21/man-urinates-in-water-city-flushes-8m-gallons/#ixzz1PvMquq4K

• Con_Alma

  The City should provide to me what I am paying for and it's not diluted urine.
• THE4RINGZ

  

  I heard this story on the radio today. Does the water not go through some purification system once it comes from this body of water?
• ernest_t_bass

  

  Such a waste. Give it to people who don't have clean water. They'll drink straight from the reservoir.
• OneBuckeye

  

  The reservoirs are drained twice a year for cleaning, and workers have found animal carcasses, paint cans, construction material, fireworks debris and even the plastic bags people use to scoop up after their dogs, said David Shaff, administrator of the city water bureau.

  If this is true, I don't understand why they flushed it.
• FatHobbit

  

  That is a ridiculous overreaction.
• WebFire

  I don't understand. Doesn't municipal water go from the reservoir to the treatment plant, then to the taps? Not the other way around? If it needs held it's usually in tanks or towers.
• justincredible

  

  OneBuckeye;808524 wrote:If this is true, I don't understand why they flushed it.

  
  Indeed. What a waste.
• SnotBubbles

  

  justincredible;808558 wrote:Indeed. What a waste.

  
  Indeed. That is such a waste.
• Thinthickbigred

  Just think about some of the pizza you have eaten and what at one time was done to it or if you were rude at a restuaraunt...The water plant has enzymes that will kill off the urine ,but its better to buy another towns bottled water ...ooops wait somebody might have done it in that system ...Spring water is the way to go ... Just get a purifyer and or boil your cooking water ... its endless ... definitly do not wast 8 million gallons unless it doesnt cost the city anything ,.....just put a boil order on I guess
• Cat Food Flambe'

  

  Gotta be more to the story than this.
  
  Reminds me of Williamson WV - back in the early 1990's . One of the local kids had contracted HIV through a transfusion - when the city administration found out he had visited the municipal swimming pool several times, they drained and disinfected both of the pools.
• wkfan

  Whomever made this decision should be removed from their job.
• Ironman92

  

  or be forced to drink pee
• Devils Advocate

  

  ccrunner609;808626 wrote:I love my well water

  Yes, because the is no effin way that anything from your leech fiels can git into your water supply.
• Ironman92

  

  ^^^^Yeah.....I've peed in cc's well several times.
• Sykotyk

  

  Um, the article states that the watershed provides 8 million gallons every HALF HOUR. So, for draining this one reserve, would take about a half hour to refill?
  
  I agree, complete overreaction. Even 8 gallons of piss dispersed over 8 million is only 1 part per million. That's imperceptible.
  
  The statement by Shaff that he was concerned with endless worries by citizens thinking they're drinking piss or their water turning yellow, etc, was enough to justify the Public Relations need to drain the reservoir and refill it. Even though it was all for show and didn't change anything about the overall quality of the water people are drinking.
  
  
  The one thing people need to learn about water, even bottled water, is that it's not pure water. Pure water is distilled water. Nothing but H20. It's also not good for your to consume just distilled water. Drinking water has sediments, chemicals, etc that are actually beneficial to us most of the time and even those that aren't are in such meager quantities they pose no risk to anybody.
  
  
  The problem is people that don't understand large numbers. To them, it's no different than if the kid pissed right in their coffee maker.
  
  Sykotyk
• password

  

  The man who pissed in the reservoir, was he black?
  
  That could explain them overreacting, because they may be racist.
• Steel Valley Football

  Lol at the city administrator calling it "pee" and not urine in his interview.
• Fab1b

  

  I heard this and thought what a waste as soon as I did. I mean this is an outside source open to the elements, they have even noted what has been found it after it has been drained in the past, frankly I'd take the pee over dead animals, paint cans, etc.....!
• password

  

  I think it was a no win situation for the administrator, if the video would have been made public and he did nothing about the piss, you would have had people in a frenzy wanting to sue the city and fire the man in charge of the reservoir because they did nothing about the incident and let people drink the water. I think it was a waste to drain and waste all that water.
• Thinthickbigred

  password;808717 wrote:The man who pissed in the reservoir, was he black?
  
  That could explain them overreacting, because they may be racist.

  
  LOL