PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon city is flushing 8 million gallons of city drinking water because a man was caught on camera urinating in one of its reservoirs.
Water from the city’s five open air reservoirs goes directly to customers. A city official says he didn’t want to serve them urine in the water.
Critics call that an overreaction, saying that animals routinely defecate and urinate in the reservoirs and, sometimes, die in them.
Public health officials say urine is sterile in healthy people and that the urine in the reservoir was so diluted that it posed little health risk.
Officials say it’ll cost ratepayers less than $8,000 — the charge to treat it as sewage. The 21-year-old man has not been charged.
