Author Topic: 140 million liters of water down the drain  (Read 18230 times)

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Offline StonentTopic starter

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140 million liters of water down the drain
« on: April 20, 2014, 10:04:47 pm »
Apparently they city of Portland, Oregon is draining 140 million liters of drinking water because a teenager is suspected of contaminating it with urine. To say nothing of the fact that this is an open air facility where animals and mother nature are free to do the same and even die in it.

Oh and .5L of urine is about 3 parts per billion of Urea at this level of dilution.

I suspect you receive several hundred times that dose just by flushing a public toilet.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/04/draining-reservoir-after-urination-incident-shows-tenuous-grasp-of-science/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arstechnica%2Findex+%28Ars+Technica+-+All+content%29
« Last Edit: April 20, 2014, 10:11:35 pm by Stonent »
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Offline Jarrod Roberson

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Re: 140 million liters of water down the drain
« Reply #1 on: April 20, 2014, 10:11:00 pm »
Doesn't matter, the majority of the general public are science deniers and live on a "belief" based system, enough of these "believers" called and complained and the path of least resistance is giving in instead of attempting to explain the facts, which would mostly likely lead to some "official" getting a call from a campaign donor and nobody wants to lose their job. This part of the US is rampant with "holistic" medicine believers that believe that "water has memory".
 

Offline NiHaoMike

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Re: 140 million liters of water down the drain
« Reply #2 on: April 20, 2014, 11:28:32 pm »
Give it to the farmers. They'll appreciate all the water with a trace of "fertilizer" added...
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Offline rdl

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Re: 140 million liters of water down the drain
« Reply #3 on: April 21, 2014, 12:17:51 am »
Pretty stupid I think, but it's not that big of a deal. This time of year in that area they have more water than they know what to do with. They already drain and clean it twice a year.

What's weird is that, according to what I've read, it's actually some kind of holding tank, that's completely open, for water already treated and ready to be pumped into the public water system (with no further treatment!).

David Shaff, Portland's water bureau administrator, said that the reservoir is not shut down for nature's transgressions. "If we did that, we'd be shutting it off all the time. We fish out animals or things that have blown in all the time." Really?
 

Online johansen

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Re: 140 million liters of water down the drain
« Reply #4 on: April 21, 2014, 01:21:02 am »
David Shaff, Portland's water bureau administrator, said that the reservoir is not shut down for nature's transgressions. "If we did that, we'd be shutting it off all the time. We fish out animals or things that have blown in all the time." Really?
humans have been drinking surface water up until 50 years ago.
 

Offline miguelvp

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Re: 140 million liters of water down the drain
« Reply #5 on: April 21, 2014, 01:43:06 am »
David Shaff, Portland's water bureau administrator, said that the reservoir is not shut down for nature's transgressions. "If we did that, we'd be shutting it off all the time. We fish out animals or things that have blown in all the time." Really?
humans have been drinking surface water up until 50 years ago.

Wells are way older than 50 years old, according to wiki since 5200 BC.

But yeah, we still used river water then again it was usually boiled.

Edit: also springs where used for drinking water, pretty much it was underground water that made it's way to the surface after serious filtration from the rocks.
« Last Edit: April 21, 2014, 01:47:55 am by miguelvp »
 
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Offline KJDS

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Re: 140 million liters of water down the drain
« Reply #6 on: April 21, 2014, 04:11:04 am »
My final year at uni was spent living in a house where the water supply was direct from a stream. The sheep in the field couldn't be sold for meat as they were too radioactive after Chernobyl. It was tasty water, far better than the chemical crap I now have to put up with.

Offline SeanB

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Re: 140 million liters of water down the drain
« Reply #7 on: April 21, 2014, 05:16:30 am »
If you have ever looked at what is in the piping used to deliver water you will add a filter. Asbestos piping ( common all over the world and still in use, just buried and forgotten about), rotting iron pipes, discarded stuff from when it was built, other assorted jetsam.
 

Online ejeffrey

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Re: 140 million liters of water down the drain
« Reply #8 on: April 21, 2014, 05:29:48 am »
The obvious solution is just to turn off the CCTV cameras.
 
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Offline StonentTopic starter

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Re: 140 million liters of water down the drain
« Reply #9 on: April 21, 2014, 05:32:52 am »
I'd bet there are several million people in the world that would love to have 140 million liters of water contaminated with nothing more than .5L of urine.

Isn't that partly why water in most of the US is slightly chlorinated so that things like this don't matter?





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Offline Richard Crowley

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Re: 140 million liters of water down the drain
« Reply #10 on: April 21, 2014, 06:09:46 am »
Exactly the same thing has happened at least once (and maybe several times?) before.  The US federal government required the city to cover all those reservoirs years ago. But that is a blessing along with a curse.  The major source of domestic water for Portland Oregon has been the Bull Run Watershed for way over 100 years. It is one of the best city water supplies on the planet.

I sympathize with people in Southern California (my relatives, included) about their drought.  We already ship them tera watts of power on the largest DC transmission line in North America. But I don't think we can ship our excess water that way. Until they can figure out some large-scale molecule transporter.

Agreed it seems to be only public perception that has no basis in fact or science. But this wouldn't be the first example of the public being complete idiots.  Maybe they can hire one of those magicians to come in and make it appear that the reservoir has drained and re-filled.  We have far less than "normal" rainfall and snow-pack this season ourselves. They are already trying to figure out how they are going to allocate water this summer.
 

Offline scientist

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Re: 140 million liters of water down the drain
« Reply #11 on: April 21, 2014, 06:32:17 am »
I'd bet there are several million people in the world that would love to have 140 million liters of water contaminated with nothing more than .5L of urine.

You bet they would. Unfortunately, distributing all that water would cost way more than filtering it from local sources.

Quote
Isn't that partly why water in most of the US is slightly chlorinated so that things like this don't matter?

In most cities, it's fluorinated with a few ug/L; helps convert the hydroxyapatite in tooth enamel into fluoroapatite, which is a bit more durable. Chlorine is usually what they dump in copious amounts into swimming pools.
 

Offline han

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Re: 140 million liters of water down the drain
« Reply #12 on: April 21, 2014, 07:16:56 am »
In India, it's not the urine that matter...


http://www.all-about-india.com/Ganges-River-Pollution.html
 
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Offline G7PSK

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Re: 140 million liters of water down the drain
« Reply #13 on: April 21, 2014, 08:37:39 am »
They reckon that the water in London has been drunk three times before you get to drink it, keeping processed water in an open holding tank at ground level with no protection at all seems silly as any thing and every thing in the form of contamination can get in.
The Ganges problem is such that it affects not just India but other parts of the world, in the 1970's cooked bones for dogs were being imported from India,then some one found their dog munching on a human bone, it turned out that the company in India was collecting the bone from the Ganges before cooking or drying them in the sun, the importation was stopped by the then Ministry of Agriculture  on the grounds that it could bring foot and mouth into the country. 
 

Offline vk6zgo

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Re: 140 million liters of water down the drain
« Reply #14 on: April 21, 2014, 09:59:45 am »
Doesn't matter, the majority of the general public are science deniers and live on a "belief" based system, enough of these "believers" called and complained and the path of least resistance is giving in instead of attempting to explain the facts, which would mostly likely lead to some "official" getting a call from a campaign donor and nobody wants to lose their job. This part of the US is rampant with "holistic" medicine believers that believe that "water has memory".

Also,TV shows don't help,where Jack Bauer,or someone similar stops a terrorist from dropping a tiny vial of poison or bacteria into an huge dam.

Those materials are supposed to be capable of killing a lot of people,but the dilution is enormous,to say nothing of the hostile environment.

Pee? --chuck a bag of chlorine in,& call it good!
 

Offline tom66

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Re: 140 million liters of water down the drain
« Reply #15 on: April 21, 2014, 10:36:07 am »
Also,TV shows don't help,where Jack Bauer,or someone similar stops a terrorist from dropping a tiny vial of poison or bacteria into an huge dam.

Maybe it's a  homoeopathic poison?
 
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Offline XOIIO

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Re: 140 million liters of water down the drain
« Reply #16 on: April 21, 2014, 11:17:27 am »
Also,TV shows don't help,where Jack Bauer,or someone similar stops a terrorist from dropping a tiny vial of poison or bacteria into an huge dam.

Maybe it's a  homoeopathic poison?

LOL

Offline GK

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Re: 140 million liters of water down the drain
« Reply #17 on: April 21, 2014, 11:59:21 am »
Doesn't matter, the majority of the general public are science deniers and live on a "belief" based system, enough of these "believers" called and complained and the path of least resistance is giving in instead of attempting to explain the facts, which would mostly likely lead to some "official" getting a call from a campaign donor and nobody wants to lose their job. This part of the US is rampant with "holistic" medicine believers that believe that "water has memory".

Also,TV shows don't help,where Jack Bauer,or someone similar stops a terrorist from dropping a tiny vial of poison or bacteria into an huge dam.

Those materials are supposed to be capable of killing a lot of people,but the dilution is enormous,to say nothing of the hostile environment.

Pee? --chuck a bag of chlorine in,& call it good!


How about Stephen Hawking implying in a science documentary that a revolution in electricity distribution along the lines of Tesla's original plans is around the corner (along with screen shots of the Wardenclyffe tower and imaginings of electrons whizzing through the thin air from the power station right to your mains GPO) because some hack gizmo manufacturing company has demonstrated an inductive charger (apparently a revolutionary and brand new technology!) for a shitty mobile phone.

Yes, really. I almost choked on my hot tomato, ham and cheese toasty.
« Last Edit: April 22, 2014, 02:18:27 am by GK »
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Offline amyk

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Re: 140 million liters of water down the drain
« Reply #18 on: April 21, 2014, 12:07:10 pm »
Doesn't matter, the majority of the general public are science deniers and live on a "belief" based system, enough of these "believers" called and complained and the path of least resistance is giving in instead of attempting to explain the facts, which would mostly likely lead to some "official" getting a call from a campaign donor and nobody wants to lose their job. This part of the US is rampant with "holistic" medicine believers that believe that "water has memory".
But strangely enough, they seem opposed to "homeopathic urine therapy". :-DD
 

Offline han

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Re: 140 million liters of water down the drain
« Reply #19 on: April 21, 2014, 01:09:50 pm »
They will not flush the water if public doesn't know someone pee on it.
I know some incident that involving a human hand accidentally grinded  in some biscuit compound.
and of course they dint spoil any food because additional nutrition  :o

 

Offline Rufus

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Re: 140 million liters of water down the drain
« Reply #20 on: April 21, 2014, 01:39:49 pm »
But this wouldn't be the first example of the public being complete idiots.

The public are not generally complete idiots, they are generally ignorant.

What is disgusting is the people who are paid not to be ignorant choose to support the public's ignorance rather than correct it.
 
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Offline scientist

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Re: 140 million liters of water down the drain
« Reply #21 on: April 22, 2014, 02:50:57 am »
Also,TV shows don't help,where Jack Bauer,or someone similar stops a terrorist from dropping a tiny vial of poison or bacteria into an huge dam.

Maybe it's a  homoeopathic poison?

Or an actual biohazard? Bacteria reproduce incredibly fast, and urine doesn't. I wouldn't be happy drinking water contaminated with anthrax or Ebola.
 

Online IanB

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Re: 140 million liters of water down the drain
« Reply #22 on: April 22, 2014, 03:05:16 am »
Quote
Isn't that partly why water in most of the US is slightly chlorinated so that things like this don't matter?

In most cities, it's fluorinated with a few ug/L; helps convert the hydroxyapatite in tooth enamel into fluoroapatite, which is a bit more durable. Chlorine is usually what they dump in copious amounts into swimming pools.

Drinking water is chlorinated at the point of supply as a standard measure in treated water systems. You can smell the chlorine if you run fresh water from the tap/faucet at high velocity so it froths up.
 

Offline han

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Re: 140 million liters of water down the drain
« Reply #23 on: April 22, 2014, 03:10:12 am »
Quote
Isn't that partly why water in most of the US is slightly chlorinated so that things like this don't matter?

In most cities, it's fluorinated with a few ug/L; helps convert the hydroxyapatite in tooth enamel into fluoroapatite, which is a bit more durable. Chlorine is usually what they dump in copious amounts into swimming pools.

Drinking water is chlorinated at the point of supply as a standard measure in treated water systems. You can smell the chlorine if you run fresh water from the tap/faucet at high velocity so it froths up.
why they didn't use O3? (ozone)
 

Offline scientist

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Re: 140 million liters of water down the drain
« Reply #24 on: April 22, 2014, 03:12:24 am »
Oddly enough, that isn't so where I live. They only chlorinate the water if it's from a well, and mine isn't.
 


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