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  • Just because drinking water is clear, doesn't mean there aren't tiny things living in there.

  • But seriously, don't worry about it!

  • Greetings programs, Trace here, thanks for watching DNews.

  • Last weekend, a teenager in Portland, Oregon released the contents of his bladder into

  • a public reservoir.

  • As a result of the public outcry, the city will spend who-knows-how-much to dump 38 MILLION

  • gallons of their drinking water.

  • 38 MILLION?!

  • During a drought?!

  • Are they crazy?

  • Yeah, they kind of are.

  • Open reservoirs are weird.

  • Water has to be cleaned and then stored somewhere, and sometimes it's water towers, sometimes

  • it's large tanks and sometimes... for some reason... in man made, open ponds.

  • What comes into ponds?!

  • ANIMALS.

  • In fact they don't just come in them, they swim and poop and pee and live and wash and

  • whatever in them too.

  • In fact, the Portland City Water Bureau Administrator David Schaff said, they have a commitment

  • to clean water "That doesn't include pee.

  • Not from people, at least."

  • HE BASICALLY ADMITTED OTHER THINGS PEE IN IT.

  • The thing is, DUH.

  • And whatever.

  • It doesn't hurt anything.

  • At all.

  • Ever.

  • According to MATH, the typical human urination produces about two cups (400-500mL), a VERY

  • small amount.

  • Of that, 95 percent is water which leaves about five teaspoons of waste.

  • 38 million gallons dumped because of five teaspoons -- which works out to about 0.000000017

  • percent urine waste.

  • Drinking water, even bottled, will often contain organic and inorganic material, pesticides,

  • runoff, and radioactive contaminants.

  • It's part of the world we live in.

  • The EPA says ZERO is often the goal for dangerous things, but their Maximum Safe Contaminant

  • Levels are... well, they're not zero.

  • In SAFE drinking water there is more Dichloroethene which in high concentrations would cause cancer,

  • Thallium which in high concentrations would cause Hair loss; changes in blood as well

  • as kidney, intestine, liver problems.

  • Even Mercury from landfill runoff, cyanide from steel mill runoff, and so on.

  • The Upper SAFE limit for coliforms -- which are bacteria living on fecal material -- is

  • 5 percent.

  • The bacteria themselves doesn't indicate poop is in the water.

  • So you're probably drinking weird things anyway.

  • Just in general, and you're fine.

  • I call this the Spotlight Effect, if we didn't SEE this person peeing in the reservoir, it

  • would have been fine.

  • And even though decades of health science, regulation and testing make tap water all

  • over the country extremely safe Portland is dumping it.

  • Why?

  • Because Portland's residents were upset.

  • Science doesn't always win in these cases.

  • People feel weird about drinking the water!

  • It happens.

  • There's an easy way to fix this, but it's expensive.

  • Close the tops of the reservoirs.

  • The State of Oregon has plans to button up their drop top reservoirs by 2020, but for

  • now, they're wide open.

  • In 2008, the city dumped 8 million gallons after a dude peed in it.

  • That cost 35,000 dollars.

  • In 2011, a couple skinny dippers caused another dump // REALLY?!

  • *smh* // But overall this won't affect anything with Portland's water anyway.

  • They store 35 billion gallons of water for the city, 35 million is a literal drop in

  • that bucket.

  • I'd drink that water anyway, ship it down to the deserts!

  • What about you?

  • Tell us what you'd want to do with all that H2O down in the comments and thank you all

  • for tuning in!

  • We're now in the top 1000 YouTube channels!

  • Hello to newbies, and thanks for oldies.

  • You're all great.

  • And if this got you squeamish check out my buddy Talal's story about other shocking things

  • in your water on DiscoveryNews.com!

Just because drinking water is clear, doesn't mean there aren't tiny things living in there.

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