FOR A BUREAUCRAT who drained eight million gallons of treated water after a drunken guy pissed into the Mount Tabor Reservoir this month, David Shaff, boss of Portland’s water bureau, has been getting heaps of shit.
News of the flushing came casually last Wednesday, June 15, during a city council discussion about security upgrades at city reservoirs. But hours later—fueled in large part by a $600,000 cost estimate that Shaff blames on “incredibly bad,” on-the-spot math, as well as some cavalier comments about the ills of drinking trace amounts of pee—word of his decision had gone viral.
The Daily Beast wrote it up. The Associated Press, as recently as Monday, June 20, put a story on its wires. Even the BBC and The Colbert Report were calling.
Meanwhile, one water lover from the Virgin Islands sent Shaff a pair of emails, each with an emphatic coda: “Fuck you.” And a guy from Texas called Shaff a “dingbat” and said he was glad Shaff didn’t live in his state.
“I’m glad I don’t live in Texas either,” Shaff tells the Mercury. “But if we were in Texas, we wouldn’t be dumping the water.”
Since the outcry began last week, Shaff and his boss, Water Commissioner Randy Leonard, have been on the defensive, replying to scores of critics worried the city had wasted water and cash after overreacting to a few ounces of likely sterile urine. Now, it seems, much of the outrage could have been avoided if officials had provided better information from the start.
Shaff says he regrets the $600,000 estimate, saying he misplaced some decimal points. He says a second figure—$35,000, quickly trotted out to staunch the bleeding—also was misunderstood. That figure included the lost retail value of the flushed water. But Shaff says there’s so much extra water in the system that the city’s supply far outweighs demand.
The real cost, Shaff now insists, is only $7,700—the cost of sending all that water into the city’s sewer system and then scrubbing up the reservoir. Leonard says the choice was Shaff’s, but that “I fully support his decision and reasoning.” But in his own standard response to skeptics, shared with the Mercury, Leonard displays his usual flair for the dramatic by raising fears about AIDS and other diseases that might spread through one man’s urine—something health officials dismiss.
Shaff has acknowledged the city doesn’t routinely drain reservoirs when animals crap or die in the water. He can’t recall another instance when someone was caught peeing. What if somebody was merely found throwing things into a reservoir?
“Would we dump it? We might. You don’t know where that stuff has been.”
Did Randy Leonard’s comments actually include a reference to AIDS? Do you have a quote?
Here’s the response Commissioner Leonard shared with us:
“I too researched if urine could be a contaminant to our water supply. Here is what I found;
Urine from healthy individuals is, in fact, sterile…if they are healthy.
People with urinary tract infections or venereal disease do discharge bacteria in their urine that can be deadly for the elderly or those who suffer from suppressed immune systems.
Even those individual with AIDS do not discharge enough AIDS in their urine to infect another person…. unless their urine has blood in it.
After learning what I have, I can tell you I would have been very unhappy had Mr. Shaff done anything but exactly what he did. Where there is any question about protecting the health of the public, I will always come down on the side of taking the most cautious approach.
So yes, I do think it was a responsible thing to do to drain the reservoir.”
I will not question Mr. Shaff’s decision to drain the reservoir, but I would like to point out a wasted opportunity here. Once one person has peed in the reservoir, requiring that it be drained, doesn’t it logically follow that others would have a short window in which to pee in it without consequence, seeing that it’s about to be drained anyway? Wouldn’t the city famous for the World Naked Bike Ride also like to add “pee in the reservoir day” to its traditions?
So has the foul drunk who pissed in the reservoir, causing this whole mess in the first place NOT been identified? And i know these reserviors are open, but aren’t they secured by like, a fence or a guard or something? Can ANYONE theoretically just walk up to these things like a lake in a public park???
Plus, i think it’s funny how alittle too much booze in one person could cost soo much damage, yet marijuana remains illegal.
Know how all this could have easily been avoided? If the reservoirs were covered. Like almost every other treated drinking water supply in the nation. Like they probably would be by now if not for a vocal minority who seem to care more about their view of the reservoir than the purity of the water itself. But they probably drink bottled water.
I am still scratching my head as to why there is so little discussion about making Joshua Seater (the guy who did the pee-job) responsible for the expenses.
I want to personally thank Joshua Seater, bar owners, bar tenders throughout the city for bringing worldwide attention to the stupidity of those in city hall.
Ginny: You’re just plain wrong about the opposition to the covered reservoirs. Please do your homework. This issue is far more complicated – and important – than you make it out to be.
Ginny is completely full of if with her remark about “almost every other treated drinking water supply in the nation” being covered. We live a mile from the Croton reservoir system that serves New York City, a huge system covering thousands of acres, of course UNCOVERED.
Such declarative certainty in complete disregard of fact makes me surmise that Ginny belongs to the Tea Party.
Andy