Exactly my first thought. And I hope that’s what they did.
As one of the comments on that article said: “Uninformed public perception is the biggest driver of unnecessary costs in this country”.
For then next few weeks I’m no longer going to spell things on the phone with “P for Ptolemy,” “P for Pterodactyl,” or “P for pneumonia.” No, for a little while I’m going to switch to “P as in reservoir.” Fuck, you want my email address over the phone, I’m going to kick the passive agressiveness up a notch"
*Yes, that’s P as in reservoir. *
Um, did you say “reservoir”?
*Yes, P as in reservoir. Kind of like D as in dogs, but not. *
Wait, what?
I didn’t read all replies. It has not been widely reported but apparently this reservoir is drained twice yearly anyway. Google news had links to several sources.
So why did the water managers not just say ‘no big deal as we’re gonna drain it soon anyway’?
According to one of the replies above (Alley Dweller, Post #71) it was last drained just three weeks ago.
It had its semiannual draining only three weeks previously. And I’m not sure of this, but I believe when they are cleaned, they are drained by sending the water on to homes. They don’t dump the water into the sewers, as they did in this case.
Bad for glass.
Aren’t most water bottles, from Dasani to Sparkletts, made of plastic these days?
California could really, really use the water, thanks to our ongoing drought. I wonder how much it would cost to ship 38 million gal. via FedEx?
The guys defense was essentially that it would gross people out and it wasn’t expensive to dump the water since it’s the north-west, not Arizona. That’s all there is to it.
However, I do have to point out that urine isn’t actually sterile when it leaves your body, only when it’s still in the bladder. So that’s kind of a myth, except it’s based on the fact that medical textbooks do say that, but people misinterpret what that means
Oregon’s having a very low precipitation year. I don’t know where this water comes from, but the manager’s attitude was cavalier.
I think the thing that puts this all into perspective for me is the fact that it is 18 hours of supply. If that was the figure quoted by the media instead of 38 million gallons then it would have made all the difference.
To the water managers, disposing of 18 hours supply isn’t that expensive in the grand scheme of things.
To the doofus who did it, “your peeing in the water caused 18 hours of water for an entire region to be considered contaminated. What were you thinking?”
It sounds to me like the actual concentrations and risks involved were never the issues.
The kid just wanted to share his precious bodily fluids.
18 hours supply for how many people?
The things I’ve seen happen in Lake Michigan while at the Indiana dunes.
I’m not even counting the industrial stuff, just what people are doing while swimming.
Lake Michigan water isn’t pumped straight into municipal water systems without treatment.
Seems so sad just to piss all that water away.
This was true back in February and is still true in Southern Oregon. But the late winter storms in Northern Oregon put us in decent shape for the rest of the year.
And at what level of pee concentration deemed worthwhile to drink?
Boating?
Yes, but still “moderate drought” conditions for northern OR as of 4/1:
http://www.oregon.gov/owrd/pages/wr/drought.aspx#Current_Conditions_in_Oregon
According to the OP neither is the reservoir in question.