mississippichem Posted June 19, 2011 Posted June 19, 2011 <Headslap> Thats a funny story. If people knew how dilute that urine would've been by the time it reached their glass of water then the city could have saved $36,000! The joy of chemistry is knowing that there is probably at least a few molecules of everything in just about anything. A sensitive enough mass-spec might be able to find some uranium in your morning coffee. 2
insane_alien Posted June 19, 2011 Posted June 19, 2011 The joy of chemistry is knowing that there is probably at least a few molecules of everything in just about anything. A sensitive enough mass-spec might will be able to find some uranium in your morning coffee. edited for truth. you'd be in contact with more urine just by dipping your toe in a public swimming pool. It doesn't bother people then so why should it bother people there. not to mention that there was probably more than a few litres of animal urine in there, not to mention animal crap as well.
mooeypoo Posted June 20, 2011 Posted June 20, 2011 Thats a funny story. If people knew how dilute that urine would've been by the time it reached their glass of water then the city could have saved $36,000! The joy of chemistry is knowing that there is probably at least a few molecules of everything in just about anything. A sensitive enough mass-spec might be able to find some uranium in your morning coffee. Two things here, though 1. The fact someone could just strall on over there and pee is a problem if the municipality considers littering of the OPEN water as such a problem. I'm quite sure if a person could walk over and pee, there are probably animals that drink off it, birds poo in it and other such icky stuff people would find horrible to drink... which leads me to point two-- 2. I would assume and HOPE that any water reservoir (particularly an open one) goes through some filtration and water-quality assurance BEFORE it reaches the taps in people's houses. Urine, along with everything else (leaves, bird poo, etc) would be filtered out. So isn't that an insane waste of money?
J.C.MacSwell Posted June 20, 2011 Posted June 20, 2011 The guy should be fined $50... ...and whoever authorized the $36,000 draining... fired. 2
John Cuthber Posted June 20, 2011 Posted June 20, 2011 It's a standing joke in the UK that the tap water in London is the cleanest in the world because it has been filtered through 6 sets of human kidneys before it's taken (back) out of the River Thames and treated for use as drinking water. Do Americans generally not understand that sort of thing, or is it only the ones who work for the water supply authorities who don't get it?
CaptainPanic Posted June 20, 2011 Posted June 20, 2011 Why does a 21-year-old guy have access to a drinking water reservoir when he's drunk? Why isn't there a fence around it, if this isn't allowed? In the link of the OP, there's another link (this one) which states that the officials also fish out dead animals and other feces. I'm sorry, but dead animals are a LOT more dangerous, and can carry a LOT more diseases than urine. What the hell are they thinking over there in Oregon? That urine is dangerous, but rotting meat is just fine for drinking water??? And if dead animals are indeed found in the reservoir, then it's obviously treated before it's sent to the tap of the people... otherwise, we'd be seeing a lot more diseases in the area. So, this is all a big media show. Rather sad, really.
John Cuthber Posted June 20, 2011 Posted June 20, 2011 Captain, In my personal experience, a drunk bloke needing a pee isn't seriously impeded by a fence. If his claim that he mistook the reservoir for a sewerage treatment works is honest then he seems to have acted more responsibly than anyone else in this story.
TonyMcC Posted June 20, 2011 Posted June 20, 2011 Astronauts in the space station drink recycled urine and according to the link it is cleaner than American tap water. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2008-05-14-spacewater_N.htm
michel123456 Posted June 20, 2011 Posted June 20, 2011 It's a standing joke in the UK that the tap water in London is the cleanest in the world because it has been filtered through 6 sets of human kidneys before it's taken (back) out of the River Thames and treated for use as drinking water. (...) Now I understand the origin of that yellow beverage in english pubs.
John Cuthber Posted June 20, 2011 Posted June 20, 2011 Now I understand the origin of that yellow beverage in english pubs. Yes, it's called lager and it comes from Germany. Incidentally, In Germany all nouns get capital letters, but in English only proper nouns (and some words derived from them like English get a capital).
CaptainPanic Posted June 20, 2011 Posted June 20, 2011 (edited) Captain, In my personal experience, a drunk bloke needing a pee isn't seriously impeded by a fence. My personal experience is that the fence itself is good enough to pee against. If I have to go, my motivation for climbing fences is nearly zero. I just want to pee. But beer has different effects on different people, so your point of view can be just as valid in this discussion. If they all climbed the fence to drink beer at an illegal place, then that's the offense. It's simply breaking into private property. Edited June 20, 2011 by CaptainPanic
swansont Posted June 20, 2011 Posted June 20, 2011 Captain, In my personal experience, a drunk bloke needing a pee isn't seriously impeded by a fence. In my experience, especially if it's a dark and unpopulated area, they won't bother to climb the fence. It becomes the target.
Marat Posted June 20, 2011 Posted June 20, 2011 In the public bathrooms of Ancient Rome, everyone shared the same stick with a sponge on the end for purposes of personal hygiene after finishing his appointed task. With no germ theory of disease, refusing to use this stick after your neighbor was finished with it and offered it to you was simply rude. Similarly, human urine was used as a dentifrice, since it is good at removing dental calculus, and it was also used as a laundry detergent. I wonder why, however, everyone wasn't sick all the time? Stronger immune systems from greater exposure to germs?
Cap'n Refsmmat Posted June 20, 2011 Posted June 20, 2011 Outbreaks of fecally-transmitted diseases like dysentery and typhoid were not entirely uncommon in those days, so it seems their method had some disadvantages.
thinker_jeff Posted June 20, 2011 Posted June 20, 2011 If you like such kind of news, here is one even more unbelievable. http://www.dailytech.com/Japanese+Make+Delicious+Nourishing+Steaks+From+Human+Feces/article21932.htm
PhDwannabe Posted June 20, 2011 Author Posted June 20, 2011 In the public bathrooms of Ancient Rome, everyone shared the same stick with a sponge on the end for purposes of personal hygiene after finishing his appointed task. With no germ theory of disease, refusing to use this stick after your neighbor was finished with it and offered it to you was simply rude. Similarly, human urine was used as a dentifrice, since it is good at removing dental calculus, and it was also used as a laundry detergent. I wonder why, however, everyone wasn't sick all the time? Stronger immune systems from greater exposure to germs? Outbreaks of fecally-transmitted diseases like dysentery and typhoid were not entirely uncommon in those days, so it seems their method had some disadvantages. Both really are true. The sort of resistance to many of the common fecal-oral route crowd illnesses like dysentary you'd find in the average Roman were likely far beyond what most of us have. (Although, compared to us, their immune systems may not have been as impressive in terms of resistance to things like influenza viruses, which thrive especially in cramped indoor quarters with low air exchange and low UV levels. A Mediterranean climate and a lot more time spent outside will do that.) Nonetheless, the bugs were in more or less pandemic equilibrium with their human targets, so they were doing fine also. Lots of people died during especially bad outbreaks of these sorts of things, particularly when bad climactic conditions favored their flourishing, or food shortages weakened the population. And of course, as is commonly known, diseases of all kinds were the primary killers of soldiers up until the modern age--lots of Roman military records contain sad, long lists of the number of soldiers lost to the "black flux" or "red flux" or fluxes with any number of other evocative colors. Of course, the Romans did famously do something about it. Rome, like Washington DC, was a world capital famously built on a festering, malarial swamp. One of their first tasks was to drain it and establish healthier local living conditions. The original big sewers ("cloaca maxima," literally "big sewer" in Latin) was originally a drain for the landscape, and the system evolved to ever-more-efficiently carry away human effluent into the Tiber. Additionally, their supremely designed aqueducts established the most important protection you can possibly have against most of these diseases: not drinking from where you're crapping. Compared to that terrible level of danger--which millions or billions in the world 2000 years later still don't have adequate protection against--the justifiably awful-sounding sponge on a stick represents a much lower level of risk of disease.
Brainteaserfan Posted June 20, 2011 Posted June 20, 2011 Why does a 21-year-old guy have access to a drinking water reservoir when he's drunk? Why isn't there a fence around it, if this isn't allowed? In the link of the OP, there's another link (this one) which states that the officials also fish out dead animals and other feces. I'm sorry, but dead animals are a LOT more dangerous, and can carry a LOT more diseases than urine. What the hell are they thinking over there in Oregon? That urine is dangerous, but rotting meat is just fine for drinking water??? And if dead animals are indeed found in the reservoir, then it's obviously treated before it's sent to the tap of the people... otherwise, we'd be seeing a lot more diseases in the area. So, this is all a big media show. Rather sad, really. IMO, I'd rather have this guy pee in the reservoir than spend my tax $ on a fence. On another dumb law - we have a well and sewer, but have to pay a "flush tax".
michel123456 Posted June 21, 2011 Posted June 21, 2011 (edited) Yes, it's called lager and it comes from Germany. Incidentally, In Germany all nouns get capital letters, but in English only proper nouns (and some words derived from them like English get a capital). Out of subject: in French adjectives don't get capital letters. "Un pub anglais." --------------------- To me the subject is the waste of 7.8 million-gallon drinkable water. The responsable for such a criminal gesture as draining a reservoir like this should be sent in Sahel for a year or two. Edited June 21, 2011 by michel123456
MajorTom Posted June 22, 2011 Posted June 22, 2011 (edited) Oh wow! That's pretty funny, but also pretty stupid by the Portland Water Bureau. Edited June 22, 2011 by MajorTom
TonyMcC Posted June 23, 2011 Posted June 23, 2011 (edited) The action begins to make sense after reading BBC news today. The water the man peed into had been purified and was ready to be distributed as tap water. According to the report this could not happen in UK as such water is stored under cover. Edited June 23, 2011 by TonyMcC
John Cuthber Posted June 23, 2011 Posted June 23, 2011 Great! Do they drain it every time a bird cr*ps in it?
TonyMcC Posted June 23, 2011 Posted June 23, 2011 Great! Do they drain it every time a bird cr*ps in it? Apparently they do worry about that in the UK as all water ready for drinking is covered. I'm not saying that a homeopathic dose of urine would worry me that much whoever or whatever it came from. However I can begin to see why the reservoir was drained. The water company would probably have been sued by any local person with a tummy bug!
John Cuthber Posted June 23, 2011 Posted June 23, 2011 I can't believe that, even in the US, they let birds etc. foul the water just before it is sent out. If they did then they should get sued by anyone who gets a tummy bug, and also (for reckless endangerment) by those who don't.
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