I was busy with election-preparation stuff yesterday so I didn't have the chance to blog about this. It doesn't seem any less stupid one day later:
PORTLAND, Ore. — Portland water officials are discarding 38 million gallons of drinking water after a 19-year-old was caught urinating into one of the city's reservoirs.
[. . .]
Some complained that animals sometimes fall into the reservoir and die without any such action taken.
"I think part of it is just that general yuck factor of, 'Yes, we have birds on there all the time, but we don't have people peeing in it all the time,' " Shaff said In defending the 2011 decision.
If the area were in drought conditions, he said he probably would make a different decision.
Yeah, I bet they'd make a different decision under drought conditions. The urine in the water amounts to how many parts per billion? Such is modern life that "the yuck factor" can trump all common sense. Heaven forbid we should have any risk of anything at all, and if there's a chance in a million we'll get sued, well, brother, that's all she wrote.
