Portland: City of Pure Water

In early April a teenager urinated into one of Portland's water reservoirs. Admittedly, this is a dumb, irritating thing to do. But as Laura Helmuth points out, in one of the most spectacularly stupid decisions in years, the city is going to drain the 38 million gallon reservoir. The most unbelievably stupid decision in about three years anyway--if this sounds familiar, that's because Portland did the same thing in 2011, when they emptied 7.5 million gallons from the same reservoir for the same reason. (1)

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Helmuth asks the question, how long would that teen have had to pee to make the reservoir unsafe to drink? She notes that 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 parts per billion and urine contains a lot of nitrogen, so she uses this as proxy. The answers:

• The teenager would have to pee about 3,333 times to produce a urine concentration approaching the EPA's limit for nitrates in drinking water.
• However, since urine is 95 percent water, the teenager would have had to urinate 166,666 times to exceed EPA's safe limit.
• Since most animals take about 21 seconds to urinate, that means he'd have to urinate constantly for 3,500,000 seconds, or about 40 days. (1)

Portland water bureau spokesman David Shaff says it well understood that the urine poses little risk, but that the city has opted to do away with the water anyway due to what he calls 'a perceived difference.' "Our customers don't anticipate drinking water that's been contaminated by some yahoo who decided to pee into a reservoir," he said. (2)

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Robert Gonzalez takes issue with this statement, "What about the stuff that winds up in the drink that we won't have video footage of? Odds are high an animal has straight up and died in that reservoir. This is literally and open exposed pool of water we're talking about. How picky can the city really afford to be when it comes to what does and does not enter its uncovered water supply?" (2) Mr. Shaff said while animal waste often found its way into the reservoir without any public health risk, there was 'at lest a perceived difference from my perspective' on human waste. (3) Makes one wonder is Mr. Shaff has read EPA's guidance manual for uncovered finished water resources. In it the EPA reports: Studies of water contamination in open reservoirs identified the following contamination sources: birds, animals, airborne deposition, plant growth, and human activity (primarily swimming). More recent studies have expanded on the traditional list of open reservoir contamination sources and include:

• - surface water runoff
• - bird and animal wastes
• - human activity
• - algal growth
• - insects and fish
• - ground water intrusion
• - airborne deposition

Open reservoirs provide attractive habitats for birds and animals and these creatures may carry microbial contaminants, including human pathogens. Contaminants may be carried externally on feathers, fur, skin and transmitted to the reservoir through direct body contact with the water. Contaminants also may be carried internally in the digestive system, and may be transmitted to the reservoir through natural biological processes, such as defecation occurring in or near the reservoir. (4) Birds are widely reported to be one of the most common and significant sources of contamination at open reservoirs. Feces from birds are a source of coliform bacteria, viruses, and human pathogens, including vibrio cholera, Salmonella, Mycobacteria, Typhoid, Giardia and Cryptosporidium. It has been estimated that 5 to 20 percent of the bird population is periodically infected with Salmonella and other intestinal organisms that are pathogenic to humans. (4) David Shaff said there isn't much the bureau can do about those natural contaminants in the meantime, and they don't pose a serious health risk. (5) Don't know about you, but I would be much more concerned about items mentioned in the EPA guidance than some miniscule pee from a stupid teenager. The only thing worse that could have happened to Portland is if someone had added fluoride to their reservoir. In May of last year they rejected a measure that would have introduced fluoridated drinking water as they have many times in the past. At least the teenager didn't leave fluoride in the water. One last note- the teenager claims he did not do it, but urinated on the fence near the reservoir. Regardless, the 38 million gallons of water have been flushed away. (6) References

1. Laura Helmuth, "Here's how long that teen would have had to pee in the Portland reservoir to make it unsafe to drink," slate.com, April 17, 2014
2. Robert T. Gonzalez, "Just how stupid is Portland for dumping 38 million gallons of water?", http://io9.com, April 19, 2014\
3. "Portland dumps 38 million gallons of water after urination," BBC News, April 17, 2014
4. "Uncovered finished water resources guidance manual," EPA-815-R-99-011, April 1999
5. Janet Eastman, "Pee in the reservoir; what you need to know," oregonlive.com, April 17, 2014
6. Jennifer Hauser, "Portland teen speaks,: 'I did not pee in the water'", hlntv.com/video, April 21, 2014

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