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Bull Run Water
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- Costs: debt service, materials, labor, general contractor, subcontractors, overhead, including ... - MarySaunders
- There is no barrier or treatment of Portland, Boston, or ... - watermark2000
- I like the conspiracy theory/reality that private companies are ... - trurl9
A federal regulation could raise local water bills and change the way Portland gets its drinking water. The Environmental Protection Agency instituted a nationwide rule, which goes into effect in 2014, to guard against the nasty parasite, cryptosporidium. This waterborne pathogen sickened 403,000 and killed 104 in Milwaukee in 1993, but hasn't caused any trouble for U.S. cities since then. The EPA regulation requires municipalities to treat or filter local water in specific ways to remove a minimum of 99 percent of cryptosporidium.
The City of Portland initially sued the federal agency over the treatment rule, arguing that Portland's water, drawn from the pristine Bull Run watershed, is pure and clean already. The city lost the suit. This week commissioners voted unanimously to continue pursuing a variance to the EPA rule while, at the same time, making plans to treat Portland's drinking water with ultraviolet light.
The fervor leading up to the council vote required city leaders to spend a lot of time quelling rumors and listening to passionate testimony about the issue. A local brewery was concerned that filtering the water could change the taste of their beer. At least one advocacy organization is urging citizens to call their congressional representatives to tell them they want to keep Bull Run the way it is.
Baker City, along with two cities in Maine, will be watching the ensuing fight between Portland and the EPA closely, and the outcome will affect their decisions about how to proceed when seeking a variance for their respective water sources.
Do you live in Portland or Baker City? How would changes to Bull Run water affect you? What do you think of your drinking water? Is it clean enough? Do you think it should be treated? If so, how? If not, why? Have you ever lived anywhere without clean drinking water? What did that experience teach you?
GUESTS:
- Rob Manning: OPB reporter
- David Shaff: Administrator of the Portland Water Bureau
- Catherine Howells: Adjunct assistant professor at Portland State University
Tagged as: bull run · epa · water
Photo credit: Sam Beebe / Ecotrust / Creative Commons
COMMENTS: (56 total)
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It appears that there are really long lead times to fixing problems such as this. If we wait for a problem to show up, will a solution take too long? For things like public health, maybe we have to be proactive.
I don't understand why filtration is so expensive. Can someone explain.
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Sorry, mikejb, what's the problem? There is (relatively) no problem with Portland's water today.
However, I've thought about a water treatment plant so that Portland doesn't have to rely on the Bull Run Watershed only or Columbia River Wellfields only. The current water system do represent an upgraded single point of failure.
Well designed water treatement plant(s) would be able to take multiple sources: Bull Run, Columbia River and Willamette River water in the event that one or more sources of water are knocked out of commission. So I see your argument for designing new water treatment facilities now. It will take a long time and heaps of money to implement new water treatment.
We can also worry about baddies hucking contaminants into the open reservoirs. Or logging could occur in the Bull Run Watershed again. Last time logging was allowed Portland's drinking water was turbid for several years because the mud particles in the runoff were so small they didn't settle out.
What will Portland do if Mt. Hood erupts and wipes out the Bull Run Watershed? There are thousands of scenarios which could impair Portland's water, but can we afford to worry about or protect against every eventuality?
The deadly cryptosporidium problem cited in this show was a result of human error.
Whether we implement an ultra-violet or expensive filtering plant, Portland's water will still be prone to a loss of water quality and human tampering. By building a complex water treatment system we're imposing human error variables, and the price tag is expensive for these complex systems.
I'd be willing to gamble that the current water system will continue to work for 10 or 20 more years as we create an integrated, imaginative, sophisticated and robust plan that upgrades the region's water system in it's entirety. Does the Water Bureau have a long range plan for upgrading the water system?
Portland's Water Supply is well over 120 years old now and could probably use some strategic and pragmatic upgrading. 10 to 20 years will give us time to evolve our current water system, and we'll have time to figure out how to pay for it too. Where is the money going to come from? Expenses are going up and jobs are going away.
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Portland's entire water system, with it's isolated, controlled entry watershed, is a gift from Oregon's 1890s low tech past. Our present open reservoirs, and elegant, inexpensive, minimally treated, system has worked admirably for over 100 years, and is like something designed from a very green future. This was beyond the understanding of the D.C. court, and so, a mis-applied, pro-water industry LT2 law threatens to LOWER our water quality. That is unless Portlander's convince our Congressional delegation, and our "perennially-eager-to-filter" Water Bureau, that we love and respect the reality we have; safe water almost directly from Oregon rain. The solution is to fight for the exemption that our water deserves, and encourage our Water Bureau and our leaders to embrace the proven-sustainable green system we have. We should spend instead, to maintain it well. How strange if one of the greenest cities on Earth slides into letting our water become needlessly chemically over-treated, so much that our watershed can be opened, so after that, we then require that treatment.
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Even if we had today the current equivalent of a WorldWar II economy -- shipyards, full employment, lots of overtime being consistently earned -- the Best of Times -- the proposed (& just rejected by the City Council) LT2 water filtration plant.....spending .8 of a billion dollars to "purify" what is already universally recognized as the purest, healthiest water on Earth....would be a terribly bad idea. In what are really the Worst of Times...(Oregon's employment rate second highest in the nation) every dollar spent on this fantasy is one less available for really practical remedies... What DOES make sense is that we all support Senator Jeff Merkley's promising, ongoing effort to obtain an administrative (not legislative) exemption from the EPA, especially now that a new official, Peter Silva, has just become in charge of the issue... The wise use of funds currently available has never been more important.
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If Sen. Merkeley is truly pursuing administrative, not legislative relief, that is indeed the way to go. The new head of the EPA clearly said that science, not politics, would the basis for decisions. The LT2 rule, as I understand it, was promulgated by a committee headed by T. Rhodes Trussell whose Pasadena, CA environmental firm which works in the "water world", would benefit hugely.
I lived in Bangladesh, and once drank surface well-water served by a Brahmin priest (felt it would be rude not to drink it) and threw up suddenly the next day. I obviously had been travelling outside the capital enough that I lived to tell the tale. Even in Bangladesh, so wet and lowlying they will be flooded by global warming and the rise of the oceans, are suffering hugely now because their drinking water wells have had to go so deep the amount of natural arsenic is poisoning them.
I also lived for several years in Bangkok and 2 years in Buenos Aires and have seen how very spoiled we U.S. citizens are by our all-too-cheap and wasteful use of incredibly safe tap water . The Milwaukee Wisconsin episode was a one-time-only highly unusual event, my Chicago sister who has worked as an environmental engineer for 55-years tells me. Her observation re the filtration system first proposed for Portland: it would be cheaper to put a filter on every individual tap. She is not the only person to understand that - a Ph.D. in the field said that years ago here and was laughed at.
The LT2 rule also affects Rochester NY with its Cobbs Hill open reservoir- one of the 40 in the U.S. A fellow activist friend of mine working on water issues when I lived in Western New York couldn't convince them to join Portland in the lawsuit over LT2. A far larger New York situation, that of New York City is discussed in "BOTTLEMANIA:How Water Went On Sale And Why We Bought It" by Elizabeth Royte. She discusses much more than the ridiculous use of bottled water. Her well-researched and beautifully written short book published last year discusses the whole topic of U.S. drinking water. This topnotch journalist's work has appeared in The New Yorker, N.Y. Times Magazine and national Geographic. I can hardly wait to read her previous "GARBAGELAND" and "THE TAPIR"S MORNING BATH"(which I just bought cheaply secondhand.)
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More than 21 community groups and representatives have written to the Congressional delegation seeking legislative relief from the onerous and unsupported LT2 requirements both for the open reservoirs and Bull Run source water- avoiding the budget-burgeoning corporate-benefiting projects that will create new risks and provide no measurable public health benefit.
Friends of the Reservoirs, Oregon Wild,Arlington Heights Neighborhood Association,South Tabor Neighborhood Association,
Mt. Tabor Neighborhood Association, State Representative Ben Cannon, Neighbors West/ Northwest Coalition of Neighborhoods (representing 10 neighborhoods),Southeast Uplift Neighborhood Coalition (representing 20 neighborhoods),PSU Capstone Water Quality class- 2008 Winter Term studying LT2/ Bull Run,
Southeast Uplift Liveability Committee,Hosford-Abernathy Neighborhood Association Chair, Sustainability Comm. Chair,
Portland Utility Review Board Chairs Paulette Rossi and Frank Ray (past chair), Mill Park Neighborhood Association,
Rock Bottom Brewery, Eastside Democrats,Alliance for Democracy- Portland Chapter, Pleasant Valley Neighborhood Association, Alsco American Linen, Hopworks Brewery, Richmond Neighborhood Association,Craft Brewer’s AllianceWidmer Brothers Brewery
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I feel like the Water Bureau is more interested in building a fancy new treatment plant than maintaining one of the finest unfiltered surface water systems in the world. This is at the rate payer's expense. We don't need this and we can't afford it!
An exclusion from the EPA's LT2 ruling must be won or Portland will lose the purest drinking water in the country and gain huge increases in already high water rates.
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The LT2 rule-making process was heavily influenced by the water treatment industry, and much of the "science" behind the LT2 was actually funded by the water treatment industry. Treating already pure water makes no sense to anyone, except of course, the big corporations and high-paid consulting and engineering firms who stand to profit from LT2.
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When talking about a source water "variance" from the EPA, keep in mind that EPA's testing methodology HV1623 is incapable of distinguishing dead, harmless Crypto genotypes or varieties from those infectious to humans ( from cows and humans).
The current sampling plan would have Portland testing 54,000 liters of water (compare to problematic filtered systems that are required to test just 600 liters per year) and if we detect four dead, noninfectious Crypto we would be over the limit.
Note that the Portland Water Bureau has been designing a UV radiation facility for over a year throughout 2008.
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Why do you keep calling it "Mt. Hood's Bull Run River"? It never touches the mountain. I know this isn't the subject, it just bugs me when "city people" call anything in the Northern Cascades Mt. Hood.
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Well, it is in Mt. Hood National Forest. But we take your point!
David Miller — Mon Aug. 3rd 9:17a.m.
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That's like calling everything in the Portland city limits "downtown".
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City Council has consistently missed opportunities to elevate (or even engage with) the public debate on this issue.
Sam Adams and Randy Leonard continue to pour energy into an unpopular stadium that would cost only $40 million, but treat at $400 million filtration plant as a routine decision; Leonard only changed his recommendation to the less-expensive ($100 million) ultraviolet treatment at the last minute, in response to the public outcry.
And in the process, Leonard disparaged the people who have managed to inform and engage the public. He chose to focus on their least compelling points rather than the service they have done to their city.
City Council needs to wake up and recognize that Portlanders care about their infrastructure and their future taxes, and want to be included in the deliberations in a meaningful way.
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It does seem like the Portland City Commission has for years (decades?) focused on the fancy, sexy, expensive projects (athletics, Willamette riverbank floating sidewalk, OHSU tram, second downtown, etc) rather than the basic, mundane needs (paving unimproved streets, syncronizing traffic signals, etc).
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If they start the UV filtration, would the levels of chlorine go down?
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You don't like getting knocked on your back by the Chlorine "residual" that comes out of your tap? Sometimes I think I'm drinking well used swimming pool water if you know what I mean. ; )
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Portland's water utility costs are some of the lowest in the Country. Ensuring proper management of Bull Run's River by eliminating the possibility of cryptosporidium and even other micro-organisims that could threaten Portland's water supply should be heralded as a good move to ensure quality as well continued low cost. This is a win win issue in choosing the UV media.
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Portland's water rates are on the rise THIS YEAR with both the base charge and rate charge raised in July by 18% (see Sept. bill) in part for the unnecessary LT2 projects- reservoir burial and design of a treatment plant (chemical filtration or UV radiation).
Portland just participated in an AWWA research foundation infectious Crypto study (ending in May '09), testing large volumes of finished water ( 300 L per week), the water delivered to customers. ZERO crypto were detected. This study was inclusive of the open reservoirs. When stakeholders learned of the study in 2008 we were told that this study would be of benefit in securing protections for the open reservoirs as well as source water. Now the Bureau fails to speak of the study.
Spending $1 billion dollars (with debt service) for a non-existent problem is wasteful. If ratepayers had that kind of cash to spend on public health there are far better ways to spend it.
A treatment plant does not eliminate the possiblity of Crypto - the 1993 Milw. WI outbreak took place in a system with sewage in the watershed and a state-of-the-art filtration plant in place. Watershed protection is the primary protection barrier against Crypto and a variety of other contaminants.
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Specifically, Leonard said that the idea that anyone wants to privatize the water source "politically insane."
He may be right, but he's failing to engage with the important point. Water Bureau leadership knows as well as anyone that municipal water supplies are getting privatized all over the country.
Even if there is no active desire to privatize our water supply, it's essential that our big decisions be informed by this knowledge. If we want to keep our water supply in the public domain, we should make big decisions with an eye to how they will influence future political pressures.
If we double our water rates, that will create public unrest, and it will make our water system more attractive to private investors. These are important considerations, and should not be brushed off by someone in Leonard's position.
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The cost is irrelevant!
We either need it, because the scientific evidence is there to support it, or we don't.
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The argument that Portland wants weakened EPA rules is really turned around. What we should be showing is that a system like Bull Run has stellar qualities, not demanding excessive tratment that a truly Green system would provide. Congress needs to hold up Bull Run as the system to emulate. We do not need to treat a system which has no problems. It's comparable to adding exhaust treatment rules to cars that are exclusively electric.
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Please, let's frame this issue properly and define the terms and options.
1) The "variance" only refers to the water testing that might get Portland out of further treamtent of our water, and it is not the only option on the table - this issue is controversial because people who are following it closely want the city to more vigorously pursue legislative relief or some sort of relief directly from the EPA administration that would exempt Portland from the Rule.
2) The variance testing would do nothing to save our open reservoirs. Only legislative relief or comparable EPA administrative action can relieve Portland from burying or decommissioning our open reservoirs.
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Curious if Mr. Shaff would prefer no treatment plant at all if the LT2 rule didn't exist?
-Sean
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I was once told that all the Bull Run water comes to the west side of Portland through a large pipe that is attached to the underside of the Ross Island Bridge.
In the event of damage to the bridge (earthquake, etc) how would water get to the west side? If a treatment plant were on the west side, would it put Portland (and other west side locals) in a position to get water from other sources and maintain water availability to the west side of the city and beyond?
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Please ask Mr. Shaff what the Bureau means by the "administrative" option that is on the table as a means of compliance. They use the term frequently these days to describe one of the avenues they are pursuing. Many people think it means EPA administrative relief from the rule, which is considered an excellent possibility by many citizens, given the new administration. Is this what it means or something else?
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After living for 8 years in Christchurch, New Zealand that too has naturally treated artestian springs for its drinking water that is constantly under threat of treatment. I am familiar with this issue. It is my understanding that New York City also has a naturally treated water supply. What are they doing as a response to this same ruling? This additional treatment is also going to have ongoing energy costs, how do these strive with the Obama administration strive for alternative energy systems? In this case Portland and New York are both using the earth's systems for cleaning and energy.
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Why is it so expensive to do each of the further treatments? $200 million to just shine a light thru the water? $800 million just to run water thru sand? Why?
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I like the conspiracy theory/reality that private companies are pushing for higher water quality so they can make profits. Sorry, I'm just firing my flame throwerI'm not about to back this up with annoying facts. Ready, fire, aim.
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I'm most concerned and annoyed by the distinct chlorine smell and taste of Portland tap water which seems to have intensified in the last several years. What's up with that? How do these options affect that, and can this be reduced?
Thanks,
Dave -
You can indeed filter your water at home for Cryptosporidium. It requires a 0.5 micron filter - readily available.
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People of Portland, what you must understand is how this EPA negotiated regulation was written with the deliberate and ignorant intent of closing all open reservoirs in the US, as desired by the revolving door water industry lobbiests. Our super-green gravity flow, water system doesn't make a lot of profit for the water industry, they dislike that a lot. Treatment plants that we don't need will solve that problem for them, and lower our current fabulous water quality. No one has died from crypto infected drinking water since the Wisconsin Crypto incident in 1992. (about 60 old and infirm died, not 100) There are 9 types of Crypto, only two from human waste and Cattle waste are dangerous to humans. The LT2 regulation is a bogus, flawed and un-scientific requirement when applied to a pristine watershed like ours.
Also, please note, the Bull Run is a basin to the west of Mt. Hood, set aside for the sole purpose of Portland's city water by Pres. Benj. Harrison in 1892. The US muni watershed law of 1940 required cities to log or pay the Feds for not logging. 8 years later, logging began in our Bull Run. At least 25% has been logged until stopped by Congress. That was a tough fight. Time now to get Congress to recognise that Portland's water is outside the ken of the bumbling EPA.
It's great that our current Water Commissioner and Water Bureau say they'll protect our watershed, but it's the heart of our source of water so clean EPA can't cope with it. and it took 8 years for logging to begin in 1948, after a similar pro-logging industry law.
Also, didn't our water rates go up 17.8% on July 1 this year. The Water Bureau & Rob Manning said that the raise will be next year. Which is true?
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Considering the cost of treating water to potable standards, I wonder if it is time to start phasing in a parallel water supply that is only for drinking. Eventually the old supply would be used only for irrigation and toilets, and treatment could be reduced to lesser standards.
I don't know what it would take but a potable only supply would be very much smaller and less costly to build.
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David Shaff is dead wrong about faucet filters. Brita confirms that their filters removes 99.99% of Crypto and Guardia.
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LT2 is a "public health" regulation and yet the rule requires little to nothing up front from the filtered systems that have real public health problems with Crypto (i.e. Milw, WI). Filtered systems are required to test very small amounts of water and if they detect small amounts of Crypto, the EPA requires no action because of concerns regarding false positives with their testing methodology.
With regard to the LT2 open reservoir requirements, a variance is allowed, New York is applying for an open reservoir variance for its Hillview reservoir. Senator Merkley has committed to seeking alternatives for the open reservoirs as well in that this requirement was inserted in the rule without any science or data to support such an insertion.
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More info from cdc on filtering out cryptosporidium - refutes what David Shaff said about in-home filtration:
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You probably heard his clarification: home filters may work, but they don't satisfy the EPA's regulations for a municipal water supply.
David Miller — Mon Aug. 3rd 10a.m.
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David Miller - The point is that those who are concerned about the (very small) risk of Cryptosporidium in Portland's drinking water can easily protect themselves by filtering their water at home.
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Unquestionably Bull Run is pristine, and deserving of protection. A natural treasure and a superb municipal water supply. But, like everything local that so many claim makes Oregon and Portland so unique and special, Bull Run is not unique. Please Oregonians examine the rest of the nation and the world before you claim the superlative or "unique" designation. Take a look at Seattle's municipal water supply. Also...heaven forbid...New York City's municipal water supply! It is as pristine, and of equal quality to Portland's. There are even entire books written about it.
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The Bull Run watershed is unique with respect to the federal protections in place. No other watershed (including the watersheds of the 5 other large unfiltered systems, NY, Seattle, San Francisco, Boston and Tacoma) has Bull Run's level of federal protections. Some of the legislated protections have been in place for 100 years and some enacted by Congress in 2001. New York has two watersheds and issues not of concern with Bull Run.
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I'm a Portland resident who suffered from Crypto this July. The illness was awful and had me in bed and in the bathroom for a week and unable to be productive for 2+ weeks. From my point of view, your discussion seems one sided. What's wrong with filtering or irradiating to prevent illness? Isn't public health more important than pride in Portland's partiallly treated water supply?
The county health department said that I probably got the parasite at a local public pool, even though I do not drink while swimming. I can't help but wonder if I got it in the drinking water supply. Can your guests put aside the politics of water and tell me if I would have been safe if Portland had gone with the Federal guidelines?
Jerry Svoboda, SE Portland
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I agree. Public health is more important than politics.
Some years ago the Republican Party had its "Contract With America". I thought (I may have misunderstood what I heard) that one of its points was to repeal (? or change?) the Clean Water Act. Could they believe that Americans would choose political ideollogy over public health and safety?
I think that our local politicians need to be more concerned about public health and safety than baseball stadiums or other "luxury" projects.
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Jerry,
This came in at the end of the show, so there was obviously no time to ask it on air. But I did show it to Catherine Howells, and she basically echoed the folks at the county health department: that, more than likely, you got Crypto from a pool (or a river, or a fountain, etc), as opposed to from your tap. Of course, there's no way to know...
Dave
David Miller — Mon Aug. 3rd 10:27a.m.
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Any type of treatment plant will require ongoing operations and maintenance. Wilsonville chose Veolia, a French multinational corporation, to run their new treatment plant. In dire economic times, what is to prevent Portland from privatizing our water system's operations?
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Professor Howells, I notice that someone going by the name "Watercapstone" working on the Wikipedia article on the Bull Run Watershed. They have significantly expanded the article.
Is this by chance a project of one of your students? As a Wikipedia contributor and editor of several years, I'd love to help this person continue to build this resource. If appropriate, you could have them get in touch with me at 503-453-9766.
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Here's a link to the Bull Run article I mentioned above.
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This is certainly a hard discussion, I grew up here in Portland, and loved the water I drank. That said, I left Portland and went to Milwaukee, WI for College. After college I started a small business and in 1993 we all got zapped by the crypto outbreak. All 3 of us were down and out for weeks. It litterally closed our company for weeks. It sickened most of the population and caused a massive financial drain on the city.
I personally was ill for weeks, and it is dreadful, stomach cramps, like nothing I have ever felt before or since. Once you finally think you are on the mend you had a bit of rice or toast and it would start all over again. No one should have to suffer through that. Since that outbreak I drank only filtered bottled water.
Having moved back to Portland, over 10 years ago, we just last year, had enough faith in our water supply to give up on the bottled water we had delivered to our home. I love Bull Run water and I would feel bad if we had to filter it, but having been through a crypto outbreak once I never want to go through that again.
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The question aked of Shaff concerned the existence of any filter system available for in home or faucet filtration and he answered no. Then when faced with a falsefication of his answer, he equivocates. This is the crux of the matter: Truth and confidence.
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Starbuck,
There is a difference between being wrong, which it turns out I was, and falsification. My general response is still accurate - the LT2 rule applies to a Public Water System, not an individual consumer. The City has to comply with the law and ensure that ALL of its drinking water meets the federal regulations. Trying to ensure that every customer has and maintains an individual filter at the tap(s) in every home, business and location where potable water may be served would be impossible and not very practical.
David Shaff
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I think this is a symptom of a larger problem with "one size fits all". I am the mayor of a small eastern Oregon town and we are suffering with ODEQ effluent regulations. We discharge a minuscule amount of restricted waste from out waste disposal facility compared with Portland or even Pendleton, but since ODEQ regulations deal in percentages we have to upgrade our facility. Our town includes a substantial number of low and fixed income persons. To qualify for state fund assistance we have to double our sewer rates. It doesn't make sense to me. I think it would be more equitable if consideration was given to the amount of effluent. I also think that many of the regulations coming out of Salem do not consider the effects they will have on smaller communities, particularly in Eastern Oregon.
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I would like to see the EPA defend itself in the public forum on this matter. Their voice was distinctly absent from today's show, but they are not above public discourse in this matter, especially with the good citizens of Portland. Surely there are EPA administrators who can evaluate the science, understand the cost-benefit analysis, and listen to the perspectives of our city's people and local government who represents us. I suspect the EPA would prefer to just interact with the city officials and the water utility and use their recent court victory to their advantage, but honestly, they need to hear directly from us the people.
Portland has a unique and highly effective mechanism to deliver water that is superior in quality to any other municipal water source, yet we are being forced to adopt an energy intensive mechanism of water purification. The Bull Run watershed should be held as a model of how the rest of the country could manage its water resources. By minimizing human and agricultural runoff there are tremendous benefits to the quality of the watershed - the EPA, of all entities, needs to realize that and encourage similar approaches where possible. I would rather see an EPA approach to minimize contamination in watersheds to near zero, rather than accepting and allowing the contamination and cleaning it up as we want to use the water. They need to be told that this is a valuable national model on how to correctly manage a water resource and its importance should not be diminished by the blind application of agency rules.
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Mr Shaff, the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines Falsification as :
"to prove or declare false; Disprove" (among other definitions).
Falsification is SOP in science. I certainly could have said disprove or wrong or invalidate, but I chose that word as I did check with Brita, while the program was running, concerning their specs.
n any case I said nothing with respect to LT-2 in my statement. I had one question to settle and that was it. You confuse the issue with introducing LT-2 at that point.
An unequivocal No from the head of the Water Bureau suggests that you indeed have the proper information allowing such a response. If it is untrue, no matter how you cut it, you have egg on your face, in my humble opinion, sir. That raises questions in my mind about any other possible inaccuracies from your Bureau.
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Bull Run water is legendary in its purity and taste. Portlanders are blessed to have access to this amazing gift. I have not seen any information that convincingly supports any additional processing of our water. Leave Bull Run water alone. Spend the money elsewhere.
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Mr. Shaff, could you please answer the question I asked previously - what does the Water Bureau and City Council mean by their reference to pursuing "administrative" options in response to the LT2 Rule, as last Wednesday's resolution states?
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There is no barrier or treatment of Portland, Boston, or New York water. The dis-information that it is pure is very political. I enjoyed the program.
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Costs: debt service, materials, labor, general contractor, subcontractors, overhead, including pensions, life, health, accident, unemployment insurance, insurance for course of construction, insurance for infrastructure after it is built, personnel to run the facility once it is built, expenditures for maintenance and operation.
We have earthquake risk now. Another facility would add to it, while conservation could improve the situation for individuals and for the city as a whole.
Best-practice graywater recommendations are to be formulated soon, as a graywater law has passed at the state level, triggered by Portland's ReCode group. Recent increases in rates hurt people on reduced or fixed income. We need ways to help, not to clobber them more with even higher rates.
Dr. Ole Ersson's Portland rainwater catchment design for a residence can be visited on the net, where there are pictures and descriptions of how it works and what it cost to build.
U.S. legislators enact unfunded mandates that impoverish people. Portland would do the country a service by calling this out. We were promised work to get transparency. We are resourceful, and many of us are now under-employed or unemployed.
A poster, banner, T-shirt contest, could get Portland on stage for a cross-pollinated science/art-a-thon. May the winner grace late-night TV.
Legislators from other states should not be allowed to force us into unnecessary debt to build a huge concrete edifice that could not serve the city equally well in all our many neighborhoods. A central plant could be subject to interesting lawsuits, none of which we should have to pay for. We should not have to be paying for an expensive variance process either. Our earthquake vulnerability should make it clear we need to husband our resources carefully and non-centrally, in micro-grids where neighbors with water on can help neighbors without, if need be.
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Portland's drinking water is tasty and fine. It's clean enough though it has run muddy-ish from time to time. Bull Run water does not need to be treated more than it already is because nobody is getting sick due to water-source problems.
Having worked for the Portland Water Bureau in the Bull Run Watershed I fervently support treating Portland's water as it is currently until there is a definitive need to do more. The EPA's action appears to be an expensive solution looking for a problem.