City leaders said they were going ahead with plans to drain the water in Reservoir 5 to ensure no health risks to Portland water customers. The decision to empty and clean the reservoir has drawn mention of Portland -- much of it disbelieving or out-and-out derisive -- by national and international news media.
The chief point of contention: Reservoir 5 can hold up to 50 million gallons of water. The typical adult human bladder can hold two or so cups of urine. So the possibility someone getting sick because of Wednesday morning's incident is, as Water Bureau officials acknowledge, slight at best.
“From a public health protection standpoint, it’s not necessary to get rid of the water,” said Anna Harding, co-director of the School of Biological and Population Health Sciences at Oregon State University. “The urine, which has very few microorganisms to begin with, would be very, very, very, very diluted.”
Still, city officials say, any risk is too much.
“The professionals told me this is the way to go. I’m following their advice. We’ve got plenty of water, so we will go ahead and take the safest course,” said City Commissioner Nick Fish, who oversees the utility. “People can feel free to second guess, but this is not a debate. This is the best public health decision.”
The second-guessing came from far and wide Thursday, including the leading advocate of a May ballot measure to switch control of the city's water away from the City Council to an independently elected water district board.
Kent Craford, a former lobbyist for large industrial water customers and co-petitioner of the ballot measure, said he thinks flushing 38 million gallons is a bad idea.
“It’s a public relations decision," he said. "I wouldn’t waste all that water, all that money.”
Craford would not speculate whether the water board he’s proposing would feel the same.
“That would be up to the board, up to the managers,” he said. “Our belief is that a water district board will make better decisions than the City Council, and that they would ensure better management than what we have right now.”
The debate about dumping or keeping the water is uniquely Portland with roots in the city's multi-year battle against new federal mandates on open-air reservoirs. Portland leaders opted to stop fighting last year, and Mt. Tabor's open reservoir system must be disconnected from the city water system by the end of 2015. The open-air reservoir at Washington Park must go offline by the end of 2016.
“Politics had no impact on our decision in this case,” Fish said. “But this is Mt. Tabor and the reservoirs, and everything that happens up there is evaluated through a political prism. I know people are going to second guess. That’s their right.”
-- Anna Griffin