Some of you may recall that in 2011 we discussed the efficiency and logic of Portland officials dumping 8 million gallons of drinking water after a man urinated in the city’s open reservoir. Well, it has now happened again. After a 21-year-old man admitted urinating in a Mt. Tabor reservoir last Wednesday, the city cut off its key water supply and dumped 7.8 million gallons of drinking water. The question, again, is the logic of such a move. Even if one does not accept that, as industry experts often spouted, “the solution to pollution is dilution,” this is such a tiny amount of impurities as to be untraceable. This would be no more than 12 ounces within 8 million gallons of water.
Notably, the 21-year-old man and his four friends (and a dog) were not given citations. They were seen however throwing objects into reservoir No. 1 at about 1:30 a.m. and one person “walked up to the reservoir fencing and urinated into the reservoir.”
Police say that they will be looking at a videotape and give the matter to the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office for possible criminal charges. Sgt. Pete Simpson, a police spokesman, noted “It’ll kind of depend on what the surveillance video shows. He’s not out of the water yet.”
In the meantime, David Shaff, administrator for the Water Bureau, dumped the 7.8 million gallons of drinking water. While he originally thought that the cost of the water was $600,000, he reduced that figure rather substantially to a retail price of almost $28,500, and disposal fees are expected at about $7,600. The decision still remains an odd, if not illogical, one. After all, the Water Bureau routinely removes dead and rotting animals from the water and birds poop continually in the water. However, he insisted that “[t]his is different. Do you want to drink pee?” He dismissed scientific questions about the dilution of the urine and said that “most people are gonna be pretty damn squeamish about that.”
I understand that he is in the business of selling water, but why not say that the matter has been addressed and the water quality has been confirmed? In the meantime, if the man knew that this was the city’s water supply, do you believe he should be charged? The interesting legal dimension is that on a practical he did not truly foul the drinking supply for individual citizens. The dumping of the water was a reaction of the Water Bureau that many would question. Nevertheless, this was a disgusting act by someone old enough to know better.
We also have another journalistic question like the one we discussed with the underaged girls yesterday in the bullying case. Here the media is not releasing the man’s name because he was not charged with a crime. Why not? He is 21 and reportedly admitted that he urinated in the water supply of the city. That would seem newsworthy to learn who would do such a disgusting act. What do you think?
Source: Daily Mail
Mike, better than someone born in Hawaii and raised in Indonesia that hates the U.S.
Ted Who?
People who hate Ted Cruz are RACIST!,
You really want a Canadian to run for President! You’re anti-American.
A) I do not think it is the government’s job to “shame” people by advertising their moral failings, if those failings do not constitute an actual crime. I think that is a slippery slope. Should they also shame people by revealing infidelity caught on surveillance camera? How about insufferable rudeness? How about a pair of adult men talking about their sexual experiences with various female students on campus?
B) Perhaps they need a higher and less permeable fence.
C) Animals pee, too. Frankly the prospect of ingesting pee worries me less than the prospect of ingesting dissolved fecal matter. For me personally, the only water ingested in my house is either distilled (and periodically inspected by me personally) or boiled (like for pasta or steamed food).
This guy is totally mad!!!!!! You could pee in a pond under 100 feet round & have no effect on the water in a few hours or less. If I pee near water in the country I generally do it a few feet away; earth is a good filter. But this man is costing his district thousands of dollars & should be charged the cost &/or fired. As George Carlin would also point out, this country is absolutely FULL of BULLSHIT! Usually a few make money out of the bullshit & the rest of us pay for it. In this case it seems that everyone loses, or is there a bigger scandal here?
Open reservoir….. Birds flying over head…. Bugs…. Pollution…. A little pee pee seems insignificant…..
Disposal fee???
Lrobby99: “….Intelligence in Portland-Fading.”
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🙂 (I’m sorry, just can’t resist.)
I wonder if it’s something in the water?
Get over it folks….. the water you’re drinking today has had to touch some pretty disgusting things, in its 4 BILLION year old history!!! Doesn’t matter… everything is eventually recycled on this planet, Someone is drinking the water I pissed a week ago, in their morrning coffee today. The Earth is a closed system. The way humans treat this, our only home in the Universe, is already beyond comprehension…. a little piss ain’t gonna hurt, much! Not compared to ‘removing a mountain top’………….
Dead animals-Okay. Five ounces human urine-Disgusting. Water supply for millions of humans-Dwindling. Intelligence in Portland-Fading.
Yes, he should be charged.
Yes, his name should be released, because the public humiliation will be harsher than the sentence.
My question for the Water Dept. is, haven’t they heard of nitrification?
This is insane, you can drink urine. WTF will they do id someone shits in this reservoir, empty it? With runoff, there are all kinds of impurities in water. What a stupid waste of a resource.
Like animals don’t pee in it/near it…
?? This water isn’t just pumped into homes without going thru some kind of purifying process…and as pointed out there are plenty of other pollutants, so what’s the problem?
Just the idea people know someone peed into it?
Sounds like Ron White’s tubing adventure with others on the river, floating & drinking beer, but even after 6 hours, not one person had to pee!! LoL
All water has passed through Dinosaurs. Every drop any Homosapien has ever drunk has been peed out by dinosaurs.
Progressives are stupid
But where did the City drain the water to? They were knowingly dumping pee on someone else. They say it is wrong to do so and then they do it. If it is diluted and does not matter then it was diluted when they did it. The people downstream have a cause of action vs. the City or Portland. If this is a Port and it is on Land then they need to get their act together and go offshore. People downstream will yell elevator, elevator, we got the Shaft. From David Shaft.
This is Pirate Territory. Fly over and flush.
If there isn’t a law against it I would be surprised, there are laws against everything. Give anybody on the blawg a hour with their municipal codes and those pi**ers would be looking at a dozen counts. Dumping the water was stupid though, the thought of fishing dead critters out of the water is a major turnoff as is the bird pop, who knows what disease they might be carrying. That’s as bad or worse than someone urinating in the reservoir. Build a taller fence farther back from the water, considering what the cost of the water adds up to it’s worth the investment.
“Even if one does not accept that, as industry experts often spouted, “the solution to pollution is dilution…”
The solution is abolition.
Build a fence around the reservoir, and punish those pissers who are contemptuous of the health and well being of others.