Honestly, I first though it was a joke. The more I think about this story now, the less funny it gets, and the more tragic and frightening.
A security camera captured the image of a 19-year-old jerk urinating into Portland, Oregon’s Mt. Tabor Reservoir system, so “to be safe,” the city is dumping all 38 million gallons of drinking water. From Ars Technica:
“David Shaff, Portland’s water bureau administrator, reserves a special disgust specifically for human urine. In 2011, when Shaff drained the reservoir following a urination, he reasoned to the Portland Mercury, ‘Do you want to be drinking someone’s pee?… There’s probably no regulation that says I have to be doing it but, again, who wants to be drinking pee?’ This time around, Shaff wrote in a statement, ‘Our customers have an expectation that their water is not deliberately contaminated.'”
That’s right: this is the second time Portland has done this. Slate does the “Wow, what an idiot!” math:
“…a typical urination of about 1/8 gallon in a reservoir of 38 million gallons amounts to a concentration of 3 parts per billion. That’s billion with a b. For comparison, the Environmental Protection Agency’s limit for arsenic in drinking water—arsenic!—is 10 ppb. The EPA doesn’t appear to have a limit for urine in drinking water, but it does limit nitrates in drinking water to 10,000 ppb, and urine does contain a lot of nitrogen, so let’s use that as a proxy. How many times would that teenager have to pee in a Portland reservoir to produce a urine concentration approaching the EPA’s limit for nitrates in drinking water? About 3,333 times.”
Yet even this doesn’t even scratch the surface of how cretinous the decision is. This an open reservoir, like we had in my home town of Arlington, Massachusetts. (It’s still there, and still open to the air.) We were allowed to swim in our reservoir. (I admit, that seemed odd to me even as a child.) But never mind, it’s open, see, to acid rain, and bird poop, and dead insects and spiders, and frogs, and water rats. Fish crap and die in it; dead birds float in it. Almost all of these ucky things are more dangerous than urine, which is pretty much bacteria-free.
Another boob in the chain of command, the Water Bureau head who is amusingly named Fish, told reporters,
“I didn’t have a choice. I don’t have the luxury of slicing it too thin when there’s a potential risk, however small, to public health. Frankly, it’s one of those calls where you know you’re likely to be criticized no matter what. The professionals who report to me all said, ‘Dump the water. Don’t take any chances.’ It’s the conservative but correct call.”
1. “I didn’t have a choice“—Rationalization #25! (But rationalizations are the least of this sad crew’s problems…)
2. What “professionals?”I suppose it should be a surprise that idiots hire idiots, so those professional who report to Mr. Fish were probably wearing clown shoes and missing their foreheads. None! The estimated cost of this insanity has been variously estimated at $20,000 to $40,000, but that’s the least frightening part of the story.
3. What “risk?” Well, Portland is being run by Mo, Larry and Shemp, who are certain that the Portland public is so stupid that it will freak out when it finds out that some kid peed in the water. Though the same public has been drinking water with far worse in it and should have realize that every time they looked at their reservoir, the Portlandians will scream for the stooge bureaucrats’ heads if “something” isn’t done to protect them from the deadly urine. That’s the potential risk that Fish is talking about—the risk to his job and his pension and benefits and perks. So he and Schaff will waste tons of water and literally flush money down the drain, all to ensure that they can keep their jobs and the power to make more stupid and irresponsible decisions.
See, guys, if you really know “you’re likely to be criticized no matter what,: then you might as well do the intelligent, responsible, right thing. That would require being capable of recognizing it, though…never mind. I’m being unreasonable.
These are exactly the kinds of people in charge of all aspects of our lives in government agencies local and national, large and small. They are fearful, easily confused little men and women driven by a need for security and an avoidance of blame, and still we are told, and still smart—well, smarter— people believe, that we need, for the good of society, and the poor, and the children, to entrust more and more of our lives, money and freedom to them, when this is the kind of decision-making acumen they bring to the task.
I can only explain it by presuming that we don’t want to believe that we are placing our welfare in the hands of the likes of Fish and Shaff, so we just don’t, that’s all.
___________________________
Sources: Ars Tecnica, Slate, Volokh
Ethics Alarms 
Reminds me of Agent K’s line from Men in Black, when J says people are smart enough to handle the truth: “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.” Bureaucrats tend to fit the “people” part more than the “person” part.
I imagine they’re absolutely certain that no bird has ever pooped in that giant open reservoir. Dogs, cats, mice, and rats wouldn’t dare come near it, of course…would they? OMG…I’ve been in Portland several times, and I actually drank the tap water…
This is the same kind of stupidity that happened after Sandy Hook. And still has momentum. One murderous little twit goes off the rails, and suddenly 90 million-plus peaceful people who never hurt anyone, and aren’t going to, are expected to flush their constitutionally guaranteed human rights down the toilet because we have to do *something.* Doesn’t matter if it’s criminally stupid, at least it’s something.
A valid analogy.
“The professionals who report to me all said, ‘Dump the water. Don’t take any chances.’ It’s the conservative but correct call.”
***********
Sure blame the conservatives!
Obviously this is something to get “pissed off” about. 😉 Considering the high fire danger in California today I’m sure not many people would care about one moron pissing in a reservoir. I’m sure the fire departments in California would love to have that water.
Can’t believe I missed “pissed off” and I am going to brood about it all day.
I wonder how many people would have even known about the kid peeing if they had not released the tape to the media. Sounds like they were setting themselves up to be seen as the great protectors of the public.
The kid was arrested, so it would have made the police blotter. Whether anyone would have noticed is a different matter.
Wait, you mean your community doesn’t have the endlessly amusing reservoir security cam live feed channel?
As long as it was organic, free-trade pee, people in Portland should be okay with it.
This waste makes me livid.
Our reservoirs around Fort Worth have been at lows for 3 years now because of the drought.
All in the name of protectionism – a good thing – we have become over-protectionist.
And water shortages are a real and increasing environmental problem. You would think this might be a consideration in bluer than blue Portland, but it’s all about the Ick. Is there another nation in the world that would do this? When I was in Russia, I saw seniors drinking their own urine as a health drink…to be fair, there WAS a raw egg in the glass too.
I haven’t done the serious mathematical or engineering analysis yet.
But the imaginative side of me has always wondered why we haven’t given any thought to a series of reservoirs, canals and pipelines to trap the snowmelt flooding that plagues the Midwest EVERY SINGLE SPRING, and diverting it away from the Mississippi flood zones into Aquifer recharge basins and other reservoirs throughout the thirsty southwest.
Now if that isn’t a HUGE GOVERNMENT PROJECT (making the Lefties happy) that ACTUALLY falls under the “General Welfare” of the Specified Powers.
“…the imaginative side of me has always wondered why we haven’t given any thought to a series of reservoirs, canals and pipelines to trap the snowmelt flooding that plagues the Midwest EVERY SINGLE SPRING, and diverting it away from the Mississippi flood zones into Aquifer recharge basins and other reservoirs throughout the thirsty southwest.”
Ditto – “from each according to flood, to each according to drought.”
Oh, well, if there was a raw egg in the glass, then it must be…wait a minute. They were drinking WHAT!
Where exactly does one dump 38 million gallons of “tainted” water without it being considered an environmental hazard?
–Dwayne
I just got back from an NYC trip and we were talking about how pissing in the Hudson might actually IMPROVE the water, as urine is less poison than whatever else is in there.
It occurs to me that every time we take a drink of water- and from whatever source- we’re absorbing molecules that flowed in and out of everything from trilobites to Torquemada. Obviously, these Oregonian idiots based their incredible decision on perception rather than logic. There’s certainly a lot of that going around these days.