14 DAY TRIAL // Portland officials announce that they are preparing to dump 38 million gallons of drinking water because a teenager urinated into a city reservoir.
They decided to flush the entire reservoir after surveillance cameras captured the moment when a 19-year-old skateboarder took a leak in it on Wednesday.
According to Daily Mail, the incident happened at the Mount Tabor Reservoir No. 5 in southeast Portland, when cameras captured three teenagers near the open repository. One of them reportedly approached the iron fence and relieved himself directly into the water. Two others tried to climb the fence.
This is not the first time when the city is forced to drain a public drinking water repository. Three years ago, officials discarded 7.5 million gallons from a nearby reservoir after a similar incident.
Although the already treated water was tested for contamination and came back clean, Portland Water Bureau still decided to flush 38 million gallons of water, explaining that they are not willing to serve their customers “purposely tainted drinking water.”
It is well known that animals and fish regularly use the reservoir as a natural toilet, and the human pee poses little risk for public health, especially when we're talking about such a small amount, but Water Bureau Administrator David Shaff simply doesn't like the idea of teenage urine in Portland's sewer system.
“There is at least a perceived difference from my perspective. I could be wrong on that, but the reality is our customers don’t anticipate drinking water that’s been contaminated by some yahoo who decided to pee into a reservoir,” he said.
Shaff also explained that the city has sufficient clean water to meet demand and the “polluted” water will be drained into the sewage system that eventually dumps into the Columbia River.
“It's easy to replace those 38 million gallons of water. We're not in the arid Southwest; we're not in drought-stricken parts of Texas or Oklahoma,” he said.
The reservoir, built in 1911, is usually drained for cleaning twice a year, in spring and fall. This year's spring draining was done about three weeks ago, according to the city's Water Bureau.
Conservancy group Friends of the Reservoirs said the draining of the entire repository was “extremely wasteful.”
The three youngsters caught on tape, whose identities have not been revealed, were cited for trespassing, while the pee-spiking culprit also received a citation for public urination. He was reportedly fined for going to the bathroom in public.