# 7.8 million gallons of water tossed out because a single guy urinated in it **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 17, 2011, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-8-million-gallons-of-water-tossed-out-because-a-single-guy-urinated-in-it/585782 "2011-06-17T02:33:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2011, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-8-million-gallons-of-water-tossed-out-because-a-single-guy-urinated-in-it/585782/61 "2011-06-17T21:21:13Z")
Guys, guys, guys. If you keep making homeopathy jokes, they’re going to oversaturate the thread and lose their potency. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2011, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-8-million-gallons-of-water-tossed-out-because-a-single-guy-urinated-in-it/585782/62 "2011-06-17T21:45:01Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > Guys, guys, guys. > > If you keep making homeopathy jokes, they’re going to oversaturate the thread and lose their potency. that’s ok. There’s a little blue pill that’ll fix that. ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2011, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-8-million-gallons-of-water-tossed-out-because-a-single-guy-urinated-in-it/585782/63 "2011-06-17T22:36:23Z")
Looking around Wikipedia for more information about our local water supply, I’m starting to think that 7.8 million gallons is really a very tiny reservoir. Last year, when there was a catastrophic failure of the aqueduct supplying Boston, about 7–8 million gallons of water were flowing out into the river _per hour_. The smallest open reservoir on the system is 50 million gallons, and I’m pretty sure that all the ones that small are emergency use only. During the aforementioned water main break, various backup reservoirs were used, and a boil water order was issued (although later testing found it to be unnecessary). There are several covered facilities on the system totaling 242.7 million gallons, for storing treated water. Obviously we do things differently here than they do in Portland. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2011, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-8-million-gallons-of-water-tossed-out-because-a-single-guy-urinated-in-it/585782/64 "2011-06-17T22:48:42Z")
8 ounces is a major league piss. No wonder he couldn’t wait. ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2011, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-8-million-gallons-of-water-tossed-out-because-a-single-guy-urinated-in-it/585782/65 "2011-06-17T22:48:51Z")
That was my thought. It’s really not a very big reservoir, if that’s the one in the picture in the article. Of course, it’s Portland; it rains regularly enough that they probably don’t need a very large reservoir. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2011, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-8-million-gallons-of-water-tossed-out-because-a-single-guy-urinated-in-it/585782/66 "2011-06-17T22:50:49Z")
But what if he had HIPee? ---
**Author:** ![Edward\_The\_Head](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce73a5/32.png) [@Edward\_The\_Head](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edward_The_Head)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2011, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-8-million-gallons-of-water-tossed-out-because-a-single-guy-urinated-in-it/585782/67 "2011-06-17T23:13:36Z")
This was the reason that I was given that we’re not allowed to swim in our reservoirs. They said that they didn’t want people to pee in it. Really? People fish and boat in the damn thing. I know what it’s like to swim near boats, you can taste the gas. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2011, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-8-million-gallons-of-water-tossed-out-because-a-single-guy-urinated-in-it/585782/68 "2011-06-17T23:32:45Z")
> [@waterj2](#): > > This made me curious, so I had to look it up. Here in Boston, our primary reservoir, the Quabbin, holds 412 Billion gallons when full. And apparently, the water is not filtered, so I’ve probably drunk whole molecules of piss before. What? You mean you don’t have a hermetically sealed, 100% sterile lake, capped by a giant rubber, and guaranteed not to contain homeless wino piss? ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2011, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-8-million-gallons-of-water-tossed-out-because-a-single-guy-urinated-in-it/585782/69 "2011-06-17T23:40:29Z")
> [@waterj2](#): > > … the Quabbin … > [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > But you _guys_, what if he had _the gay_. … What if he was [Mistah](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamcatcher_%28novel%29) [Gay](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamcatcher_%28film%29)? CMC fnord! ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2011, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-8-million-gallons-of-water-tossed-out-because-a-single-guy-urinated-in-it/585782/70 "2011-06-18T03:19:04Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > What? You mean you don’t have a hermetically sealed, 100% sterile lake, capped by a giant rubber, and guaranteed not to contain homeless wino piss? Well, after the water is treated (though it isn’t filtered, it is treated with ozone and chloramine for disinfectant purposes, the pH is adjusted with sodium carbonite and carbon dioxide, and fluoride is added), I think it stays in pipes or in various covered storage facilities. The two tanks on the hill near my parents house, for example, hold 3.7 million gallons. There’s a huge (115 million gallon) covered storage facility out in Weston. [Here’s a map](http://www.mwra.state.ma.us/04water/system-maps/simple-water-1200.jpg) of our system, although it doesn’t show the smaller covered storage facilities or the backup reservoirs. All of which is to say that as minor as the guy pissing in Portland was, it seems to be several thousand times more serious than someone pissing in our reservoir. And 7.8 million gallons is a lot less water than I had thought it was. I was thinking something around the size of perhaps our Chestnut Hill Reservoir, which seems modestly sized, but is actually about 500 million gallons. Or Cambridge’s Fresh Pond Reservoir, which is 1.4 billion gallons. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-8-million-gallons-of-water-tossed-out-because-a-single-guy-urinated-in-it/585782.md?page=3)