What teens will do is unbelievable, peeing in a reservoir that is used for drinking water is just ignorant.
That little stunt caused the city of Portland, Oregon, to take safety measures against contamination, dumping 38-million gallons of water from the reservoir.
Portland officials said they are flushing away millions of gallons of treated water again, the second time in less than three years, because some idiot urinated into the city’s reservoir.
CCTV (security camera) footage of the Mt. Tabor reservoir taped the man urinating and two others attempting to jump the fence.
Portland to flush 38 million gallons of water from reservoir after teen caught peeing in it http://t.co/Lwh3JfPhlP
— HuffPost Green (@HuffPostGreen) April 17, 2014
Portland water administrator David Shaff said the health risk was small, but the agency would not serve “deliberately contaminated” water.
“The reality is our customers don’t anticipate drinking water that’s been contaminated by some yahoo who decided to pee into a reservoir”
After watching the security camera and learning of the contamination, officials immediately closed reservoir and took water quality test samples. The water will be replaced with fresh water from the city’s Bull Run supply.
Mr. Shaff said that while animal waste often finds its way into the reservoir without any public health risk, there was “at least a perceived difference from my perspective” on human waste.
He said the city had plenty of water to meet demand and that replacing the 38 million gallons would be “easy”. “We’re not in the arid South-west. We’re not in drought-stricken parts of Texas or Oklahoma.”
So a teen urinated in Portland's reservoir, they decided to drain 38 million gallons of it. Africa would have killed for 1 gallon of this!
— AAAAAAARichard (@umequivocal) April 17, 2014
It is, however, wasteful.
Three men, one aged 18 and two aged 19 were cited for trespassing. One of the 19-year-olds was cited for public urination. Officials and prosecutors are trying to decide whether to charge any of the three with a crime.
These men should be required to do community service at the very least – perhaps cleaning public toilets.
Image via YouTube