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Bloke pissing in reservoir prompts 8m gallon flush

'Do you want to drink pee?' asks Portland water official

A young man who relieved himself in a Portland reservoir prompted the local water authority to flush 7.8 million gallons of drinking water down the toilet.

The 21-year-old was spotted by officials in the early hours of last Wednesday walking with four chums close to the Mount Tabor H2O repository. While some of his pals "threw objects into the reservoir", the perp "walked up to the reservoir fencing and urinated into the reservoir", the Oregonian rather reservoirishly records.

Cue a mass dump of water worth $28,500, a loss to which Portland Water Bureau will have to add $7,600 in "disposal fees".

The bureau's administrator, David Shaff, robustly defended the decision to ditch the entire contents. He asked: "Do you want to drink pee?"

When pressed by the Oregonian about "scientific data and the small amount of urine in such a large reservoir", Shaff countered: "Answer the question. It has nothing to do with scientifically. Most people are gonna be pretty damn squeamish about that."

The bureau report into the outrage says that when approached by officials, the unnamed, loose-bladdered chap admitted: "It was a stupid thing to do."

He offered: "I didn't mean to show disrespect. I thought this was a sewage treatment plant."

The perp has not been charged with any offence, although legal action may follow. Police spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson said: "It'll kind of depend on what the surveillance video shows."

Unable to contain himself, Simpson added: "He's not out of the water yet." ®

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