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Comment by orblivion | Hacker News Reader

What if he had a disease?

What if he did? The water is already chlorinated, urine is sterile thanks to the way kidneys work, and the concentration is still on the order of billions to 1. If you want something to worry about, worry about bird poop and animal carcasses - if chlorination is good enough to deal with those, it's good enough to deal with some sick guy's water.

Ah right, forgot about chlorination. Then yeah I agree it's silly. I knew it would be diluted but I wasn't sure if the disease would multiply in the water. I guess it needs a host's nutrients to feed on. EDIT: or not? maxerickson below cites an example.

And yes the thought of drinking bird poop is disconcerting. Does this reservoir hit some sort of treatment plant or other sort of filter before hitting Portland's faucets?

They aren't perfect, but water treatment systems will do much to mitigate any presence of disease. There are federal and state standards and regular testing of water supplies.

(There are biological contaminants in any surface water, so you need treatment whether humans are peeing in it or not.)

Edit: Oops, they are dumping treated water. The 4 ppb in a sister comment makes a good case though.

It too would be diluted down to 4 parts per billion and not matter.

It's not about parts per billion or what other animals do in the reservoir, it's about irrationality and phobia of pee that came out of humans; and to work with irrationality (to keep people drinking the water as opposed to switching to bottled as a result of this knucklehead), overreactions, like draining the whole thing, might be the right move.

How can that be the right move? If everyone stopped using water and there was a massive run on bottled water, it might be worth doing as a concession, but doing it pre-emptively is nonsense. What irrationality are we going to have to pander to next?

The right move is to educate people how to properly evaluate risks so that you can avoid the overreactions.

That was my thought as well. I'm not sure what the likelihood of a disease contaminating the entire resivoir is, but regardless wouldn't the water be sterilized before it hits the tap? After all it's exposed to other wildlife.

The disease would have to be transmitted via urine, then it would have to survive in mostly clean water for what... days? Months? Years? and then it would have to be effective after normal consumption. I'm not aware of any disease that would be transmitted this way.

There are occasionally outbreaks associated with municipal water supplies. I remember a big one from Milwaukee in the early '90s, looking it up, it was caused by a protozoa, cryptosporidium. They can be pretty durable:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptosporidium#Life_cycle

Good point. There are federal rules in place to address that very issue, as a direct result of the outbreak you mention: http://water.epa.gov/lawsregs/rulesregs/sdwa/lt2/index.cfm

Essentially, the options are cover your reservoirs or put filtration & disinfection systems in place.

I remember that. Was a kid at the time and I swear it felt like we had to boil water for months :D

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