Man ruins 38 million gallons of drinking water by urinating in Portland reservoir

The Independent | 17 April 2014

The three teenagers were apprehended by police and the 50-million-gallon reservoir was taken offline for testing

  

Officials in Portland have decided to “discard” around 38 million gallons of drinking water after a 19-year-old man was videotaped urinating in a city reservoir.

The incident took place at around 1am local time on Wednesday when the unidentified teenager approached an iron fence surrounding the reservoir and urinated directly into it. 

The three teenagers were apprehended by police and the 50-million-gallon reservoir was taken offline for testing.

Remarkably this is not the first time the water authorities in Portland have had to drain a reservoir in the area. Three years ago the city drained a 7.5-million-gallon reservoir at the same Mount Tabor location.