No way near Homeopathic standards..
Still needs another universe or two* full of water to meet the 200C standard.
* ok its 10^230 Universes...
Urinating teen polluted 57 Olympic-sized swimming pools - cops
A Portland teen collared last month for urinating in a reservoir at the cost of 38 million gallons of lost drinking water has raised some interesting scientific questions. There's more here on just how cops charged 18-year-old Dallas Jeffrey Delynn for taking a slash at the water repository at Mount Tabor, prompting officials …
-
-
-
Friday 16th May 2014 09:08 GMT Michael H.F. Wilkinson
Re: No way near Homeopathic standards..
I wonder whether believers in homeopathy ever worry about the "memory of water" theory. It would certainly worry me, if I believed in it, because one of water's persistent memories must be being piss at many times during its existence.
I once wrote a paper on a quantum mechanical theory homeopathy. It got accepted in Annals of Improbable research. A preprint is here.
-
Friday 16th May 2014 09:57 GMT Bob Wheeler
Re: No way near Homeopathic standards..
"Quantum Mechanical Interpretation"
I'm going to make this my new catch all responce to any question at work.
Boss: "Hey, did the backups work last night?"
Me: "Quantum Mechanical Interpretation says that if I check then they might have, or might not have. So to be safe I won't look."
-
Friday 16th May 2014 10:34 GMT magickmark
Re: No way near Homeopathic standards..
You sir owe me a new keyboard!!!
Coffee went everywhere when I read this "In quantum parlance, the "wave function" of the particle is said to "collapse" into a specific state (or flask) due to the act of observing. Incidentally, this is why cats resent people staring at them: the constant collapse of their wave function is a strain on their delicate senses". Worthy of Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams.
Wonderful paper
-
Friday 16th May 2014 12:53 GMT Michael H.F. Wilkinson
@ magickmark Re: No way near Homeopathic standards..
Coffee went everywhere when I read this "In quantum parlance, the "wave function" of the particle is said to "collapse" into a specific state (or flask) due to the act of observing. Incidentally, this is why cats resent people staring at them: the constant collapse of their wave function is a strain on their delicate senses". Worthy of Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams.
WAY too much honour, you are making me blush
I might have a spare keyboard somewhere that I could send you
-
-
Friday 16th May 2014 10:45 GMT TRT
Re: No way near Homeopathic standards..
"I wonder whether believers in homeopathy ever worry about the "memory of water" theory. It would certainly worry me, if I believed in it, because one of water's persistent memories must be being piss at many times during its existence."
So water has a memory... I think it must somehow drain MY memory, because I drunk so much I must have been pissing buckets of the stuff but I can't for the life of me remember doing so. Though my shoes were wet this morning.
-
This post has been deleted by its author
-
Saturday 17th May 2014 19:13 GMT Intractable Potsherd
Re: No way near Homeopathic standards. @Michael H.F. Wilkinson
A bit late, but let me add my plaudits for your paper. The humour is marvellous, and your conclusion that homeopathic practitioners must never observe their patients by moving city or, better yet, committing suicide, is wonderful.
Oh - the ability of cats to end up where they couldn't possibly be has been proven in my houses for years. One feline quantum particle, blind and brain damaged, could be found upstairs when, mere moments before, he was on the settee next to me - and had not passed me on the stairs. Another, not quite so adept, could move without being seen, but could be heard. We had had a little song about him:
You can hear him,
But you can't see him,
Clio is the invisible cat ...
-
Monday 19th May 2014 18:01 GMT Mike Flugennock
Re: Feline quantum particles
Whew, I'm sure glad I'm not the only one whose cat seems to know where all the space-time wrinkles are in the house... and our Minnie, being strictly an indoor cat, has had the better part of a decade to find all the "wrinkles" in our house. I honestly didn't know we had that many.
Still, she does that stupid bit where she crawls under the sofas to sleep and acts as if we can't see her even though she leaves her tail sticking out. Little stinker.
-
-
Friday 16th May 2014 10:47 GMT kmac499
Re: No way near Homeopathic standards..
Would easily have hit the 200C limit as the only homeopathetic component of the stream was the final few drops that were correctly (ahem) shaken. The majority of the freefall stream would have no effect whatsoever.. along with all the fish, fowl and possibly bear piss (run off from the woods) in the lake..
-
-
Friday 16th May 2014 14:42 GMT User McUser
Re: No way near Homeopathic standards..
Best argument to use with Homeopaths:
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Friday 16th May 2014 11:58 GMT Bloakey1
Re: Re birds taking dumps
"Never mind the birds but all those water creatures who procreate and defecate in that water! Ugh"
That is why I only drink alcohol! When offered water I say:
"Nahh fish fsck in it!"
Filtering it through a filter made of a sock, carbon from the fire and then boiling it helps but as you throw it away and reach for the alcohol you realise the futility of such measures.
I have often drunk piss on courses and funnily enough it is best to drink someone else's rather than your own, but hopefully from a physical container rather than direct from the source.
It is also good for skin infections, chapped and frozen hands, psoriasis etc. Salt content innit <sic>.
-
-
-
-
This post has been deleted by its author
-
-
Friday 16th May 2014 10:06 GMT Mephistro
Re: Some one else needs to be charged ...(@ Evil Auditor)
"Why does it matter when the water is chlorinated, doesn't the chlorine simply stay in there?"
When you add chlorine to water, it combines with biological matter and destroys it, by by transforming it into salts, chlorides and stuff, and also part of it out gasses into the air. If more biological contaminants are added after the chlorine, some of those contaminants may reach the taps.
Now some thicko peeing on the water reservoir doesn't worry me much*, but dead animals and bird droppings added AFTER the chlorine... that really would freak me out. This set up also would facilitate a biologic attack on said reservoir.
Hey, the City Council could have played it smart, spent some money on a publicity campaign and turned Portland into the Golden Shower City.
*: Though I think said thicko deserves to be gobsmacked till his eyes pop out. Not because I consider him a big risk for people's health or anything, but because of... reasons. ;-)
-
Friday 16th May 2014 11:15 GMT Evil Auditor
Re: Some one else needs to be charged ... @Mephistro
Thank you for the explanation. (I'm not much of a bio guy)
I wouldn't want to drink chlorinated water at all but wouldn't add more chlorine kind of solve the problem?
And anyway, where did it say that they add chlorine before the water enters the sealed system?
-
Friday 16th May 2014 14:25 GMT Nigel 11
Re: Some one else needs to be charged ...(@ Evil Auditor)
but dead animals and bird droppings added AFTER the chlorine... that really would freak me out.
I hope you are one of the few people who never allows any tap water that didn't come from the kitchen cold tap past their lips. Also, that you have checked the routing of all the pipes in your property, and have inspected the situation in the loft.
Commonly in a flat in a Victorian building, the other taps are fed from a header tank in the loft, that is not covered, and which is accessible to any wildlife that can get in under the eaves. I have heard of cases where people complained to the water authority that their water tasted unpleasant, and the problem was traced to a decomposing pigeon or rat in the header tank. It's also not unknown for the kitchen cold tap to be mis-plumbed into the supply from the header tank. And of course, mixer taps mix a bit of impure hot water into the "pure" cold water, if you select cold but the previous usage was warm.
Personally, I'm rather more concerned about leachate from the coal tar (ie concentrated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, bio-accumulative carcinogens) with which the Victorians sealed their cast iron public water supply systems against leakage. Many of these pipes are still in use. At least London has the saving grace of hard water coating the innards of everything in limescale.
Oh, and "plumbed" my well mean plumbed with actual lead pipes, if the building is pre-war. Again I'm glad of the hard water in London.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. You now have permission to vomit.
-
Monday 19th May 2014 07:54 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Some one else needs to be charged ...(@ Evil Auditor)
Commonly in a flat in a Victorian building, the other taps are fed from a header tank in the loft,
It predates Victoria, this was a reaction to fears that Napoleonic spies would poison water supplies, so all houses were required to maintain their own reserve. It's all the fauilt of the French.
And of course, mixer taps mix a bit of impure hot water into the "pure" cold water, if you select cold but the previous usage was warm.
That hasn't been allowed for many years, the two feeds must remain seperate right up to the point of exit of the tap. Which is why you can put your hand under a modern mixer tap supplying warm water and still get scalded, because the two streams haven't actually mixed. You can't win.
-
Friday 16th May 2014 11:51 GMT bpfh
Re: Some one else needs to be charged ...
No, chlorine does not stay in water if it's open, sunlight can degrade it, and it would also seem thunderstorms clean the active chlorine out of the water in a big hurry: We always had to add more chlorine to our swimming pool after a thunderstorm, even if we topped it up the day before, otherwise 3 days later, it would be bright green with algae...
-
Sunday 18th May 2014 21:44 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Some one else needs to be charged ...
"doesn't the chlorine simply stay in there"
No - it bubbles out again. Hence why people who buy bottled water or even worse 'water filters' to 'remove chlorine' are gullible idiots. Simply letting tap water stand for an hour or two, or chilling it achieves the exact same thing....
Besides the fact that London tap water out performs the vast majority of mineral waters in blind taste tests anyway!
-
Monday 19th May 2014 08:15 GMT <shakes head>
Re: Some one else needs to be charged ...
having lived in london i can't believe that it beat anyting in taste test, having spent my entire life drinkin gfrom the tap, london was the only place i could not manage it, and it made my tea tase funny, the joys of bonny scotland and drinkable tap water.
-
-
-
-
-
Friday 16th May 2014 08:41 GMT 's water music
Re: Homeopathy?
Maybe they are believers in homeopathy, drinking a microscopically dilute amount of this perps pee is the same as drinking gallons of the stuff!
Duh! Firstly drinking dilute wee so all of the delicate flowers who are up in arms about it should be welcoming the chance to be inocculated against drinking wee.
And secondly any homeopath will tell you it simply doesn't work*
*unless the preparation has been succussed, and I don't see anyone having walloped the reservoir ten times
-
-
-
Friday 16th May 2014 12:28 GMT Velv
Not having been in a chemistry lab for 20 years, what is the accepted principle these days for "flushing" a vessel.
It certainly wan't to simply empty it, since there would be a high likelihood of residue remaining. I seem to remember it required three fills to achieve a point where it was considered sufficiently "diluted" to have removed any chance of cross contamination.
And what is the specific gravity of urine since it isn't pure water, and wouldn't this lead to it either riding on the surface of the water (and thus would be dragged across the ground at the edges as the water receded out of the lake), or it would sink to the lowest point (and thus probably sink into a puddle before being drained, returning into the lake when refilled).
-
-
Friday 16th May 2014 08:38 GMT VinceH
Fox 12 says: "To give you an idea just how much water 38 million gallons is; you could take 760,000 showers or fill up about 57 Olympic size swimming pools with all that water."
38,000,000 / 760,000 = 50.
50 gallons of water per shower?
I know Overpuddlian gallons are smaller than imperial gallons, but really?
-
-
Friday 16th May 2014 19:41 GMT VinceH
Nope. Back in the 1990s I decided that America is Overpuddle, and the people that live there are Overpuddlians. I've routinely used those since and they are now a solid part of my language - so much so that if I'm writing something formal that refers to America/Americans I have to watch out for and correct any instances of Overpuddle/Overpuddlians.
And they roll off the tongue much better than Overpond / Overpondian, IMO.
I similarly also decided that Australia would henceforth be called Danundaland, but I seem to refer to Australia very infrequently - so infrequently that I'm not even sure if I'm spelling my own made up word correctly. Or if I'm remembering correctly that Danundaland's inhabitants are the Danundalot.
-
-
Friday 16th May 2014 09:01 GMT JetSetJim
Re: dead animals: yes
Is it true or urban legend that the sphincter muscles relax on death? If true, then there's poo in them thar dead varmints, leaking into that big pond. Do you wanna drink varmint poo (as well as all the bird poo that falls in, and fly poo, mozzie poo and all the rest of the ecosystem that poos in the reservoir)?
-
Friday 16th May 2014 09:40 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: dead animals: yes @JetSetLim
Evacuation happens most often during asphyxiation, something Christie found rather distasteful but not sufficiently so to be a deterrent. As for a normal death, the muscles start to contract causing what is known as rigor mortis, afterwards the muslces do relax. Evacuation dosen't occur however it isn't unheard of in certain parts to plug up the orifices with rags to prevent leakage.
-
Friday 16th May 2014 12:23 GMT Bloakey1
Re: dead animals: yes @JetSetLim
<snip>
" Evacuation dosen't occur however it isn't unheard of in certain parts to plug up the orifices with rags to prevent leakage."
In my experience faecal and urine evacuation often does occur particularily in case of SDS (1). When the body is left long enough and after rigor mortis has occured the muscles do relax particularily the anal sphincter. Pressure also build up within the body due to decomposition , gasses, weight of relaxed body mass and these can put pressure on the small and large intestine and cause a toothpaste effect. Further to that gasses from decomposition and also those generated by flora in the intestine can cause the body to bloat, causing further pressure on colon (internal and external) and also to project available liquids and solids through the path of least resistance. That path is often the anal sphincter, vagina / penis, nasal passages, airways, eustachian tubes, tear ducts and not forgetting the ears.
In the event that it is not SDS but a slow death, often this does not occur as the desire or indeed ability to ingest food is not there so there is not a lot to evacuate.
Also ... shock / force can also cause an evacuation effect. The shock of being hit by a 7.62 * 54 in center body mass (my favourite target) can cause a miscreant to evacuate. The shock of the round can also have an edifying effect that causes them to evacuate from the pressure wave. Some rum coves also evacuate at the realisation of what is going to happen next ;) .
Soooo, all in all we are just a vessel that works on over pressure and we are essentially designed to evacuate whether killed by fair means or fowl (2).
.
Thus endeth the first lesson. Please go to page three in the hymn book and we will sing the school song:
All things Bright and Beautiful
<snip>
(1)Sudden death syndrome, I have seen lots of battlefield deaths.
(2) Pecked to death by military guard geese.
-
Friday 16th May 2014 12:58 GMT Elmer Phud
Re: dead animals: yes @JetSetLim
Bright and Beautiful?
"All things dull and ugly,
All creatures short and squat,
All things rude and nasty,
The Lord God made the lot.
Each little snake that poisons,
Each little wasp that stings,
He made their brutish venom.
He made their horrid wings. . . .
. . .Each nasty little hornet,
Each beastly little squid--
Who made the spikey urchin?
Who made the sharks? He did!"
etc
-
-
Saturday 17th May 2014 06:58 GMT Bloakey1
Re: dead animals: yes @JetSetLim @Bloakey1
<snip>
" Evacuation dosen't occur however it isn't unheard of in certain parts to plug up the orifices with rags to prevent leakage."
I would refer the honourable gentleman to his comment above. Evacuation does indeed occur in a normal raaltively well fed person who has some form of excreta / body fluid to evacuate.
Soo, I would put it to you sir in no uncertain manner, that you are talking bollocks!
p.s.
For the pedants I realise that talking is not the correct term so how about "expressing oneself in a textual format".
-
-
-
-
Sunday 18th May 2014 09:29 GMT Cirdan
Re: dead animals: yes
Regarding animals dying (n.b. humans are animals):
First hand experience two weeks ago:
My beloved 14 year old Alaskan Husky, Samantha, was suffering from a sinus tumor. After a year of reasonably good health, she finally refused her favorite food, cheese, and I knew it was time to ease her pain. My dear daughter Katy (12 yo) wanted to be there to comfort the old girl who's looked after her since Katy's birth.
The wonderful vet prepared my daughter, telling her that after Sam were gone, it would be normal for her to leak faeces and urine.
As Sam breathed her last, she collapsed in my arms and Katy caught her head. This wonderful vet cleaned up the leaked faeces as we grieved the life and love we'd lost; the vet placed an absorbent pad under her hindquarters to catch the leaking urine.
Sorry for the teardrops on this post. In answering, I wanted to give voice to a kind soul who quietly (wolves don't bark, silly) cared for my two babies and masterfully went from beta female to alpha on the loss of Jäger (my dear Belgian Shepherd who passed at age 15 four years ago)... after a week of indecision, she put the new Plott hound adolescent in his place and kept him there even though he weighed 85 pounds to her 50.
And should this be of help to anyone, my twins both chose the right path for themselves. Katy was there the whole time. Sean stayed home...too intense for the boy on the autism spectrum. But they grieved their own ways well. And Sean wanted to sprinkle shredded cheese on her shroud before burial.
Thanks, Samantha. Thanks, Jaeger. If there is a heaven, they're running and playing together again.
-
-
Friday 16th May 2014 08:44 GMT FartingHippo
Here comes the science bit
Well, the maths bit, anyway.
Taking an average pee as about a pint (the approx frequency of toilet visits is once per pint, following the breaking of the seal), which we approximate as 0.5 litres.
Taking the volume of drinking water as 38,000,000 US Gallons (as the volume was reported by a Merkin agency), this equates to 143,850,000 litres.
Dividing one by the other gives us 0.0035 parts per million, or just over 3 parts per billion. Now, I suspect that 3 parts per billion of anthrax spores would actually be safe to drink, so emptying the whole lot seems a smidgeon OTT.
-
Friday 16th May 2014 14:41 GMT Nigel 11
Re: Here comes the science bit
The law just needs to get a sense of proportionality.
Yes, he's guilty as charged. But let's see. If three years is an appropriate sentence for a waiter caught pissing in the soup, then for pissing in a reservoir you get three-billionths of that sentence. I make that a shade under fifty milliseconds.
BTW just one anthrax spore might be enough to kill you, if it's the lucky one in a million. This is the difference between biological and chemical weaponry.
-
Friday 16th May 2014 08:47 GMT Yet Another Hierachial Anonynmous Coward
Over reaction?
Is this an over reaction by officialdom?
Assuming this was an open reservoir, then it contains raw untreated water. A miniscule amount of human pee is hardly significant. Considering the reservoir is open (ie not covered) birds can pee and sh!t in it as much as they like, and it is fed by rivers, into which the perp could easily have pee'd unnoticed. Indeed I am sure the sheep, cows and rabbits upstream have no concerns about pee'ing in the river at all. And the reservoir no doubt contains fish, all of whom sh!t and pee with no regard for the environment. Good grief, the fish even have sex in that water!
All these contaminents will be filtered out or neutralised by the subsequent treatment process.
However, if this was a closed reservoir (ie. sealed, containing treated "potable" water) then it is a whole different kettle of fish. Members of the public should never have access to sealed reservoirs, and he deserves everything they can throw at him. As does whatever process (or failure of process) which allowed him access to the reservoir.
-
Friday 16th May 2014 11:53 GMT Rabbit80
Re: Over reaction?
It is an "Open" reservoir in the sense that it is open to the elements, wildlife and such. However, these reservoirs contain fully treated water ready to go to the water mains for drinking etc.
There are no fish in them and they are not fed by rivers etc (Although I expect they get run off from rain)
IIRC they get some limited treatment before entering the water mains such as filtering.
They are supposed to be either covering them or giving the water further treatment by 2020.
http://www.portlandoregon.gov/Water/article/330807
-
Friday 16th May 2014 09:06 GMT Anonymous Coward
Fox 12 says: "To give you an idea just how much water 38 million gallons is; you could take 760,000 showers or fill up about 57 Olympic size swimming pools with all that water."
It's good to see the Reg's 'online standards' are starting to be picked up and used by other 'reporting' organisations.
-
Friday 16th May 2014 09:10 GMT JayBizzle
Maybe it was Terrorist pee?
I wonder what effect putting that amount of water into the environment over a very short space of time would have?
Anyway today I had 5 Olympic sized showers but refrained from adding my own water sauce, there probably was no need for the guy to be adding his to the reservoir but you can always rely on the Yanks to go over the top.
Oh and thank God for the UK system.
-
Friday 16th May 2014 09:19 GMT Anonymous Coward
Do you want to drink pee?
Well, honestly no. But I'd rather take my chance with human pee than rat's pee, so I'm assuming this official has trained all the rats in the area to pee elsewhere and also put up notices for any visiting rats that they shouldn't pee in the pond.
Also, don't they treat the water before it's piped to the consumer?
-
Friday 16th May 2014 12:48 GMT Bloakey1
Re: Do you want to drink pee?
<snip>
"But I'd rather take my chance with human pee than rat's pee, so I'm assuming this official has trained all the rats in the area to pee elsewhere and also put up notices for any visiting rats that they shouldn't pee in the pond."
<snip>
OOOOH, luverly <sic> Mary Poppins, Weils disease or Lepto Spirosis if you are of noble birth. Can I say zoonoses ? I have always wanted to say that in open fora but have not had the chance.
Hell, I have two other delicious words to say as well, slobgollion and gusset.
My life is now complete, my mission is over and all ambition fulfilled.
-
Monday 19th May 2014 13:33 GMT ZippedyDooDah
Re: Do you want to drink pee?
<snip>
Hell, I have two other delicious words to say as well, slobgollion and gusset.
My life is now complete, my mission is over and all ambition fulfilled.
<another snip>
I can't even hear the words "moist" and "gusset" without thinking of Susie Dent, of Countdown fame, who lists these two words as her most disliked. There may even have been a moist gusset or two thrown into the reservoir too.
-
-
-
-
Friday 16th May 2014 09:40 GMT Piro
Re: I would definitely rather drink some human piss than...
I should add some modifiers to be specific, before someone says something about stew.
You know what I mean. Warm, rotting flesh, covered in flies, gently warming in the sun.
As well as all the other heaps of muck in an open-air reservoir.
A bit of well filtered blood seems tame in comparison.
-
-
Friday 16th May 2014 09:33 GMT Jim 59
Bogus
There is no way this story is real.
Any large open reservoir contains tons of bird poo, dead birds, thousands of fish crapping all the time, millions of rotting weeds, probably several human cadavers, dust and dirt from the atrmosphere etc. etc. etc and of course the whole thing is made from mud, not tiled like a swimming pool.
Story is untrue. Or if it is, they are using the word "reservoir" in a very different sense to how we use it.
-
Friday 16th May 2014 09:49 GMT Bronek Kozicki
Re: Bogus
This history is true and the reservoir in question has concrete walls. However it is open, and thus most definitely contains fair amount of bird and fish poo, dead animals etc. Even more surprisingly, water is delivered to homes from this reservoir without any treatment (it is treated on the way in). You can find the picture of the reservoir and more information in Huffington Post.
And yes, I agree that emptying this reservoir is an example of mind boggling stupidity, as is delivering this water to homes without as much as UV treatment.
-
Friday 16th May 2014 12:29 GMT Jim 59
Re: Bogus
I don't believe citizens are drinking from an open pond, concrete lined or not. I don't believe events and circumstances are as described. Either it is a publicity stunt, or somebody is having their leg pulled, or there is a lot of filtration and processing that the media has not mentioned because it would make the story boring.
Come on guys. The water boss David Shaff is even quoting as saying it is a "basic commandment" of the Bureau to provide COLD water.
-
-
-
-
Friday 16th May 2014 14:04 GMT Truth4u
Re: only poor people drink tap water
In the UK and USA, bottled water == tap water. I can't imagine it's any different in France when the same fat cats operate the same companies the same way the world over.
Here's a money spinner for you: get municipal water which has already been paid for by taxes, pay one penny to bottle it and another penny to truck it, now it's worth £1 and has stopped being municipal water and started being 'healthy mineral spring water'.
Most people have no idea how the water cycle works or anything like that so they can easily be made to pay twice for the same water.
-
Sunday 18th May 2014 01:21 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: only poor people drink tap water
> I can't imagine it's any different in France when the same fat cats operate the same companies the same way the world over.
If it says "Mineral water" ("Eau minerale") somewhere in the bottle, it comes from a source (name specified somewhere in the bottle). If it doesn't say "Mineral water", and particularly if there is a Nestlé or Coca Cola logo anywhere on the label, then it's probably tap water.
Of course, you may get lucky: if you are in the Volvic region in France (or in much of Austria), tap and mineral water are one and the same.
-
-
Sunday 18th May 2014 22:08 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: only poor people drink tap water
"water quality can be improved by investing in a home filtration system"
Nope - they are in general a tax on the gullible. If you chill tap water, or leave it to stand for an hour or two, it will taste exactly the same as filtered water...There is no tangible gain in further filtering the vast majority of UK tap water...
-
Tuesday 20th May 2014 22:45 GMT Fink-Nottle
Re: only poor people drink tap water
> Tax on the gullible
During my time working in research labs I had access to the nessecary analytical instrumentation, and I objectively tested the effectiveness of my undersink carbon filter / silica filter system to my own satisfaction. There is no doubt in my mind that removing particulates, organics, chlorine etc improves the taste and odour of tap water.
-
-
-
-
Sunday 18th May 2014 22:12 GMT TheVogon
Re: only poor people drink tap water
Just in case anyone didn't realise that was a joke:
Is it true that tap water contains hormones?
No. Analysis of water abstracted from rivers, in storage reservoirs and in tap water has shown no detectable levels of hormones. Laboratory studies have shown that current water treatment processes would be very effective at removing hormones - if they were present.
http://www.tapwater.org/faqs
-
-
-
Saturday 17th May 2014 07:03 GMT Bloakey1
Re: only poor people drink tap water
Where I live you would be mad to drink the tap water. The water is clean enough and sweet but I thought I was hard until I met this water. When people come around I ask if they want one slice or two.
I use bottled water as my kidneys have survived long enough without having pesky stones.
-
-
Friday 16th May 2014 10:25 GMT Unicornpiss
Where did the water go when they "flushed it"? (and I hope they used the setting for liquid waste and not solid when they flushed to save water-ha) Why, it probably went back into the lake or river from which the reservoir was filled. Then the reservoir was probably filled again from that very same lake or river.
Somehow the beer icon just seemed appopriate here when dealing with taking a wee.
-
Friday 16th May 2014 10:27 GMT Andy The Hat
Aha - I see a correlation and when I grow up I can be a climate scientist!
Sea level rise *is* due to human influences - namely the deposition of 57 olympic pools af water per human pee (probably more for certain stubborn instances of Gt Yarmouth cigars) equating to 10^15 cubic metres of water per day. (Obviously *we* don't flush that much as the cistern would be too big, it's added at the "treatment" plant.)
That's potentially a mean sea-level rise of 2.7m but allowing for the natural actions of the water cycle, some retention due to dodgy prostates, whales having a drink and both Ireland and Manchester being rain magnets, I believe that equates (within the ranges of typical climatologist errors bars) *exactly* to recorded increase in sea level rise over the last few minutes. QED
Nobel Prize for Sewage please!
-
Friday 16th May 2014 10:31 GMT teebie
I think a certain water bureau might not be very good at their job
So, 1 manwee (500ml) of pee in 140 million litres of water - around 3 parts per billion (ppb) is unacceptable.
But the level of arsenic allowed in the water by the Portland Water bureau is 10(ppb) - over 3 manwees per reservoir.
So they would have been happier if the guy was peeing arsenic?
-
Friday 16th May 2014 11:31 GMT Nick Ryan
Re: I think a certain water bureau might not be very good at their job
The interesting thing about arsenic is that we need some, in the correct form, in our diet. The not so great thing about arsenic is that even a little too much is very unpleasant. While it has to be in the correct form, the same can be said for Carbon, Oxygen, Hydrogen, Iron and so on.
arsenic is the 20th most common element in the Earth’s crust and the 12th most common element in the human body
I'm unable to find a clear attribution of this statement, however we do have arsenic in appreciable quantities in our bodies which would indicate that it's required. I have seen peer reviewed articles reporting this however can't find them due to the expected "arsenic news" noise in Internet searches...
-
Friday 16th May 2014 15:39 GMT Nigel 11
Re: I think a certain water bureau might not be very good at their job
The interesting thing about arsenic is that we need some, in the correct form, in our diet
Has that actually been proved?
Last time I read about it, the status of Arsenic as a trace element in higher organisms was unknown. It's omnipresent in the environment in small concentrations, so it's impossible to feed a rat on a completely Arsenic-free diet to see whether it develops a deficiency disease. On the other hand, there wasn't any known enzyme or other bio-molecule with Arsenic as an essential component.
Best guess was that Arsenic is an element that higher organisms have evolved to tolerate in low doses, because those doses are omnipresent.
I do know that certain micro-organisms are known to have evolved in Arsenic-rich waters to substitute Arsenic for Phosphorus in many (not all) of their biological pricesses. But drinking those same waters would soon kill a mammal, so any read-across is doubtful.
-
-
-
-
Friday 16th May 2014 11:57 GMT Mephistro
Re: Shallow pools
"...will be an average of 2.02 m deep..."
For safety reasons, I prefer this kind of swimming pools.
-
-
Sunday 18th May 2014 11:25 GMT Mephistro
Re: Shallow pools (@ Bloakey1 & AC)
To Bloakey:
"All a bit homo erotic what!"
If you think that a cartoon depicting people -guys&gals- in a swimming pool is 'homoerotic', perhaps the problem is not in the cartoon. Just saying.
To AC:
Give me a fucking Tom & Jerry or Roadrunner any day.
Aaaaaaamen!!!
To both:
I didn't post the video because its technical excellence, nor because I like people clad in those ridiculous swimsuits*. I posted it because it was side-splitting and spot on the subject of shallow swimming pools. To notice that though you'll need to watch the whole video. ;-)
*Note: I've hated those Speedo style swimsuits since the seventies, and I'll hate them till my last breath.
-
-
-
Friday 16th May 2014 12:34 GMT Velv
Crime and Punishment
There was somewhere in the UK (think it was Leeds) that had a special Q-tank trunk that used to roam the streets at night. If the Police caught someone relieving themselves in an inappropriate place they called up the Q-tank and you had to clean up your own pee.
Why Q-tank? Because q follows p.
-
Friday 16th May 2014 13:03 GMT Infernoz
Morons
You can hardly expect an open water repository to stay clean and a bit of urine in such a large water volume won't be noticed; they should at least pump the water through pre-filters and industrial filter material, like used by the LifeSaver bottles, to get all the debris, bacteria and viruses out of it!
I'd be more worried about all the pharmaceuticals in it if it is 'cleaned' sewage water, and if "Flouride" (mixed industrial waste) is added.
-
Friday 16th May 2014 14:45 GMT Mike Ozanne
Too much freetime
38 Million US Gallon resevoir is 7195266272189 milli-Moles (mM) of water (assuming 100% purity, yeah Right..) i.e 1 mole of water is 0.676 fl oz 1 resevoir is 38 million *8 *16 fluid oz divide one by other multiply by 1000 to get milli-Moles
Assume large slash of 0.5 litres
Typical Constituents of Urine
Inorganic Ions 250 mM/L
Urea 300 mM/L
Uric Acid 3 mM/L
Creatinone 1.2 mM/L
divide by 2 to get mM added, divide by mM of water in resevoir
Added to resevoir from large slash
17.3 ppt (parts per trillion) Inorganic ions, 20.8 ppt Urea, 0.2 ppt (parts per trillion) Uric Acid 0.08 ppt Creatinone .
Yes that's worth trashing the whole reservoir for, after all fish and insects don't fuck in it do they...
-
Friday 16th May 2014 14:52 GMT Mad Chaz
Some math
Lets do some math.
Webmd says the average human bladder's maximum capacity is between 400ml and 600ml.
For argument's sake, let's imagine our perp had a very large bladder and really, REALLY needed to pee. So 600ml
a quick conversion says 600ml = 0.158503 US gallons.
Now 0.158503 of piss in 38 000 000 gallons of water.
This gives us a piss to water ratio of 1 gallon of piss per 239 743 096 gallons of water, or 1 part piss per 239743096 part water.
I suspect that kind of contamination level is surpassed over 100 folds by the amount of piss and shit wild animals like birds drop in that reservoire will naturally drop in it.
So, knee jerk reaction by squeamish idiots who'd rather waste resources then understand what they are doing.
-
Friday 16th May 2014 15:42 GMT Jim O'Reilly
Worse than Fukushima radioactivity in Califonia seawater?
What's worse - 6 pisticles per gallon or 5 nanocuries per liter?
This is environmentalism gone overboard. Doesn't Portland know that California is considering recycled sewage water?
It's this sort of crap that gets real environmental science a bad name!
-
Friday 16th May 2014 19:34 GMT For Full Disclosure
Send it to California
California and most of the western USA is currently in the worst drought of modern times. If you're not careful, Oregon, somebody will be sending a pipeline north to collect all that water you waste. I'm sure my filter could strain a little bit of piss. Besides, some (admittedly stupid) "health nuts" advocate drinking urine. Bottoms up!
I suspect this whole thing was only stirred up to discourage other foolish humans from doing this in their divine waters.
-
Friday 16th May 2014 20:38 GMT Herby
Urine in drinking water?
Looks like nobody has ventured forth to the International Space Station. They REGULARLY recycle urine into potable water. Sure it is probably a better process than the city of Portland uses, but it can be done.
As for people relieving themselves in bodies of water, I refer everyone to what General George Patton did as he crossed the Rhine into Germany in WW2. I understand this is well documented. Oh, and the German people didn't complain either (not that it would have done any good!).
-
-
-
Saturday 17th May 2014 07:14 GMT Bloakey1
Re: America!
He was just taking the piss, unlike the reservoir.
I take it the reservoir was cleaned and sterilised after this oh so traumatic inciden?. Did they provide counselling to everybody within a 1000 miles? were the flushers declared as heroes? was it declared a disaster? were any heroes from Eyeraq and Afghnistan affected? were questions asked in Congress?
I weep for you people of Oregon and if any of you had passports I would ask you over for a drink of proper water. My sofa's however are only feeble European ones so i would ask you not to crush them with your superior American bodies.
Will the miscreant be shot or merely anethetised so he can show no outward visible signs of pain and then be forced to suffer a horrible painful death while in a paralysed condition.
-
-
-
Saturday 17th May 2014 01:14 GMT skeptical i
Dear Portland:
If you are not going to use that 38 million gallons of slightly soiled water, can we have it? We appreciate your concerns about quality, but be assured we do have filtration equipment to handle the modest contamination you describe. Thank you for your kind attention.
Sincerely,
Arizona.
-
Sunday 18th May 2014 05:13 GMT roger stillick
Portland Water Bureau defies USDHS, for years...
Portland Oregon has 3 unused reservoirs, 2 in Washington Park, and 1 at Mt Tabor...the washington Park reservoirs used to be filled, but not used just cuz they looked good in the Park... at least 1 dead body got the pools permanently empty...the Mt Tabor reservoir has been closed for repairs since 9-1-1 when the USDHS mandated all public water supplies to be covered n secure... every few years the Portland water Bureau gets stupid n fills the uneeded reservoir...
The Mt Tabor Reservoir is surrounded by a full size private college with young adult apartment houses... the minute the pool gets filled... you know the rest of the story including the pix...
This is the Second time the Federal Gov mandate draining the pool happens / fines / paperwork / washing the concrete...it needs to FOAD...
IMHO= the Water Bureau doesn't need the pools and they will never secure the un-nedeed facilities... they just need to turn the 3 pools over to the Parks Dept with the water lines removed... this is years old Troll Food... no need to keep feeding the Trolls...RS.
-
Sunday 18th May 2014 17:24 GMT Anonymous Coward
Drained over urine
Polluted... no where near being a correct term.
Whoever made the decision to drain that water should be fired due to gross incompetence/ignorance. Urine, while icky, is still sterile. Given the size of the reservoir and any water treatment that occurs, there was even less of a need to dump anything. People wouldn't be able to eat manufactured food if this standard used in the food industry. That's why there's a PPM rate.
-
Monday 19th May 2014 08:26 GMT Big_Boomer
Water is BAD for you!
It is, it can cause hyper-hydration, you can drown in it and it is the worlds best solvent. (Water sniffing anyone?) Unless the Yanquis do it differently the water from the reservoir goes through a treatment plant before it gets sent for Human consumption. These treatment plants use osmotic filtration, high power UV irradiation (yes, your water has been IRRADIATED!!!!) and add chemicals like Chlorine (mustard gas) to it. Piss is the least of your worries.
-
Monday 19th May 2014 09:02 GMT Anonymous Coward
One of our neighbours who had made himself rather unpopular installed a hot-tub in his garden. Some of the local youths, returning from the pub late at night, find themselves in need of a pee and coincidentally the need arises when they are in the immediate environs of said hot tub. Concerned that the water levels might be falling, they feel it their public duty to provide a top-up.
It is a source of great satisfaction to the rest of us to see the family reveling in the resultant fluid. We are tempted to ask if they might wish to contribute to the boys' beer money from which they ultimately derive the benefit of free hot-tub top-ups.
-
Monday 19th May 2014 17:52 GMT Mike Flugennock
"taking a slash"
"...cops charged 18-year-old Dallas Jeffrey Delynn for taking a slash at the water repository at Mount Tabor, prompting officials to empty one entire pond..."
At long, long last, I finally "get" that old Benny Hill gag: "...take a slash on the seats, take a slash on the floor -- and if anyone disturbs you, wave your knife in the air and say you're a Liverpool supporter!"
-
Monday 19th May 2014 18:08 GMT Mike Flugennock
Recycled ISS drinking water
I often wonder what the ISS crews go through in that regard... even though the potable water recycling hardware has been proven and tested, still -- just knowing it was recycled from you and your crewmates' piss had to cause some consternation at first.
Still, after awhile, I guess they just learn to roll with it... though I'm sure that astronauts now have shared more than a few lame, sophomoric piss-drinking jokes.
This topic is closed for new posts.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
