re: #319 Gus

Ugh.

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…City Commissioner Randy Leonard, who is in charge of the water bureau, defended the decision, citing a potential public health risk. He said he worried about the possibility of chlamydia or AIDS from blood in urine.

“I’m for taking the most conservative approach,” he said.

Dr. Gary Oxman, the county health officer, said the risk was so close to nil that it falls in the “never say never” range. Even with the uncertainty over an object thrown in the water, “that’s still a very small risk,” he said.

The young man, Josh Seater, told KATU-TV he’d been drinking, was with friends and thought that the reservoir was a sewage treatment plant. He said he felt guilty instantly, and then security guards arrived.

“I knew I did wrong when I did it,” he told the station.

Besides the sewage charge, Shaff said, the flushed water is worth $28,000.

The Mount Hood watershed that supplies the city is brimming this spring, with roughly 30.3 million litres flowing through it about every half hour.

“If I lived in Texas, I might have had a different response,” he said.