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He Doesn’t Even Want to Know What the Bears Do in the Woods

“Do you want to drink pee?” demanded David Shaff, administrator for the Portland (Ore.) Water Bureau. “It has nothing to do with scientifically. Most people are gonna be pretty damn squeamish about that.” That was his justification for dumping the entire contents of the 7.8-million-gallon Mt. Tabor reservoir, which provides drinking water to the city, after a 21-year-old man peed into the lake. Shaff had originally estimated the action cost the city $600,000, but amended the figure to $28,500 worth of water, plus about $7,600 in “disposal fees” to dump it. He admits that the city “regularly” finds dead animals in the reservoir, and that doesn’t cause him to order the water to be dumped. “This is different,” he said. Police were called out, but the responding officer didn’t see fit to cite the man. Shaff is demanding that the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office prosecute the unnamed man. “It’ll kind of depend on what the surveillance video shows,” responded a police spokesman. “He’s not out of the water yet.” (RC/Portland Oregonian) ...Well there’s the problem!
Original Publication Date: 03 July 2011
This story is in True’s book collections, in Volume 18.

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I believe humanity is held back by the lack of thinking. I provoke thought with examples of what happens when we don’t think, and when we do. This is True is my primary method: stories like this come out every week by email, and basic subscriptions are free. Click here for a subscribe form.


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