1 guys urine ruins 38 million gallons of water ???

[jblizzle]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/04/17/water-reservoir-urination/7814581/

Knowing what we know about pool chemistry, does this seem like a bit of an over-reaction to anyone else? Or is there a legitimate concern?

They even raise the point that often animals die in the reservoirs and the water is not discarded, but a little urine and dump the whole thing.

Honestly, this seems like an odd system to me (or maybe this is normal everywhere ). They treat the water and then store it in open reservoirs that are fed directly into the mains for customers.

What is stop all the birds from dropping bombs into the "pond" before people drink it?

Makes me glad I have a semi-private well

 

[JasonLion]

Politically it make total sense, even if the chemistry is sketchy. They are in the process of switching to a reservoir that is underground, and thus can't have these issues. I have little doubt that this is partly a side effect of justifying that expense.

 

[sbn56]

Politics must be the only answer, once again defying good science and common sense.

If the guy REALLY had to go, and dropped a pint that ALL made it to the reservoir - the source is no longer pure water, it's now only 99.99999967105263266101107677299% pure.

This is why I dose my 13K gallon pool weekly with piddle detector, so that I can discard the treated water if anyone leaks.............

Skol!

 

[suep]

I live in Portland and the people that run the water bureau here are total morons and this is the second time this has happened. They are so stupid that they would probably dump the water if someone dumped a jug of bleach in the reservoir (I'm not kidding). Most of the people that live here think they are crazy for doing it. I live close to the reservoir where this happened and there always ducks swimming in the water and they frequently pull out dead animals. It rains a lot here and there is no shortage of water but Portland has one of the highest water rates in the nation due in part to the incompetence of the idiots in charge. In the past the have take money from our water bills and spent it on any pet project that they can think of. </end rant>