One Man's Pee Pushes Portland To Flush 38M Gallons Of Water http://t.co/jqGEYthxmN
— NPR News (@nprnews) April 17, 2014
Though they concede that it’s unlikely the public was endangered, officials in Portland, Ore., have decided to drain 38 million gallons of water from a reservoir after a young man was observed urinating into it on Wednesday. Our colleagues at Oregon Public Broadcasting note that the crime was caught on video — from a distance. “Three unidentified men,” OPB writes, “were cited for trespassing after being stopped at the site early Wednesday morning. One was also cited for public urination. The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office will decide whether to pursue criminal charges.”…. After Portland Water Bureau officials saw what happened, they decided the water in the kidney-shaped reservoir needs to go.
Mt. Tabor reservoir is located a bit over a mile from where I live in Portland. Depending on what’s happening, it’s either one of the world’s largest open-air drinking water reservoirs…or Portland’s largest toilet. Because the reservoir is uncovered, it’s exposed to all manner of things being dropped into it- leaves, pollen, and bird and animal feces are at the top of the list. You might think that the idea of someone peeing in the reservoir, while not desirable, wouldn’t elicit panic…and you’d be wrong. Way wrong. One brain-dead moron with more hormones than sense takes a leak into the reservoir…and the Portland Water Bureau is making plans to drain all 38 million gallons. An overreaction? Pretty much.
This isn’t the first time this scenario has played out, nor is it the first time the Water Bureau’s drained the reservoir because someone mistook it for an open-air urinal. As happened in 2011, the Portland Water Bureau is spending something like $35,000 to drain 38 million gallons of water…because someone took a whiz into it. Why drain the reservoir over the introduction of 6-8 fluid ounces of human urine? It’s not about the risk to human health…because there’s none to be found due to dilution. No, it’s all about the “ick factor.”
“Having someone urinate in your water supply is disgusting, but the reality is, it’s not going to make a difference,” said Richard Luthy, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University. “There are public health perception issues, but no public health risk.”….
Human urine also rarely contains the kind of pathogens that public health experts worry about when they work on contaminated water supplies.
“The main concern here is really one of pathogens, bacteria and viruses,” said Luthy, director of the National Science Foundation’s Engineering Research Center for reinventing the nation’s urban water infrastructure. “Urine, by its nature, doesn’t have pathogens in it typically. Feces does.”
The public revulsion- whether real or perceived by the Water Bureau- ignores the truth that Portland’s reservoirs- at Mt. Tabor and Washington Park- are open-air toilets for all manner of species. The threat to public health posed by animal feces is far greater than anything two cups of human urine could represent. Yet the Sturm und Drang is over one brain-dead dickweed peeing in our drinking water. No one wants to see that happen, but if you’re concerned about the potential health risks posed by human urine, what about the even greater peril represented by animal waste?
In order to approach a concentration that might pose a threat to public health, Dallas Swonger would’ve had to pee in the reservoir approximately 3,333 times. That’s a lot of PBRs…and Swonger would likely die of alcohol poisoning long before introducing enough urine into the reservoir to pose a health risk.
Several smart people on Twitter quickly did the math and figured that 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.
To sum things up, Portland’s Water Bureau dumped 38 million gallons of perfectly good drinking water at a cost to taxpayers of around $35,000…because they were concerned that Portlanders would be grossed out? Exactly.
Your tax dollars at work. Or not.
Here’s something that gets lost in the “controversy”…human urine is 95% water. In cases where people have been stranded without water, it’s not unheard of to drink one’s own urine…and survive. One of the methods for sterilizing a wound if you’re out in the boonies and away from immediate medical care is to urinate on it. It’s not ideal, but it’s a better short-term solution than letting infection set in. My point is that urine is gross and/or dangerous only insofar as our perception of it goes.
Was it worth spending thousands of dollars to drain 38 million gallons of drinking water because two cups of human urine were introduced into it? Not when you consider that animals and birds have used the reservoir as an open-air toilet for years…and to the best of my knowledge, no one’s fallen ill because of that. As with so many things today, the reality doesn’t count for nearly as much as the perception.
Sometimes, common sense isn’t an option. Not when overreaction makes people feel safer…in thought if not in reality.
