I've lived in Wilsonville and drank their tap water. It's just fine and as the article states, meets all the federal and local requirements. This isn't "sick", this is good for the community of Wilsonville. Mayor Lehan has done a great job in this small town and a decision to allow Coca-cola the ability to use Willamette River water (aka Wilsonville tap water since 2002) would be a smart decision. I think the state of Oregon needs to get over this idea that the Willamette River is nasty and polluted, that's the only reason that you think this is "sick on too many levels to count". The Willamette River is water and it's getting cleaner by the day.

Mmmmm... Willamette River water... Enjoy.

There are other levels of sickness here. The whole bottled water concept is questionable, for example.

One has to be mindful that Wilsonville is miles upriver from Portland.

It's in Portland that we suffer from the "combined sewage overflows" on rainy days, rendering the city-stretch of the Willamette contaminated.

We continually hear Sam-the-Tram's mantra that
"the 'Big Dig' will eliminate the overflows and contamination"
of the waterfront.
___from Sam's lips to God's ears___

-ob

Sorry, but Portland isn't the only source of contamination in the river. It flows through some fertile farmland made more fertile by ample amounts of fertilizer...

It is a drainage basin after all.

So much cr*p gets dumped into the Willamette, from Eugene on north. There's even a nuclear waste dump in there. Paper mills, municipal sewage, ag runoff, you name it. It ain't fit for drinkin'.

I count two levels.

The first level, which is "Ugh, it's the Willamette!", is addressed by (a) not taking the water from Portland but upriver and (b) apparently filtering the heck out of it. From the article it sounds like the water source is not a problem.

The second level is the "whole bottled water" issue. I agree it's pretty silly and wasteful to buy overpriced water in plastic bottles, but given all the silly places we Americans spend our money, is that really a "sickness"? Are you "sickened" by the sight of bottled water? Truly? I am more bothered by VIPs flying in jets to exotic locales to discuss reducing carbon footprints, Canada dumping its raw sewage into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and "Drill baby, drill!" than bottled water.

You want to talk "sickening," let's talk about living in a world where Stephon Marbury has a $20 million-plus guaranteed contract.

Look, you can purify water using the proper steps. I've both turned the ocean into drinking water (navy) and industrial water into ultra pure water. It's not hard to do though it can be expensive.

I do have a problem with paying for over priced bottled water but pulling it from the Willamette isn't an issue.

Take any water. Any. Think about where it's been.

this is good for the community of Wilsonville.

seriously?..."It will add 17 jobs in Wilsonville and 45 in the surrounding area."

A whole seventeen jobs, huh? Probably min. wage too. Obviously not people who will be living in Wilsonville. So they will have to drive to their crappy job to boot.

I am really not getting this. There's gotta be some place where they can get Bull Run water just as cheap. I mean I've seen where they get Perrier from and its next to a gravel pit almost in Geneva, but the Willamette?

The 17 jobs will seem like good jobs to the people who take them.

Wilsonville built its water treatment plant in a snit over its share of the cost of upgrade to Portland's Bull Run water system. I'm reasonably comfortable that the marvels of modern science can clean Willamette water as clean as anyone could want. I suspect that Wilsonville is glad to have another industrial customer to help with the costs of its 10 million gallon a day plant that's running at 60% capacity.

The Wilsonville mayor ought to learn about refillable water bottles. They are amazing these things that you can put tap water right into!

I don't care what Coke and Wilsonville does, as long as they don't get our good Bull Run water.

Wilsonville got their treatment plant because Governor Kitzhaber made a deal to help fund it within the prison/Dammasch. Villebois scheme.
Obviously it would have been better to utilize one of our superior sources of water but the stench of polluted politics won over.
That whole rotten episode was a lesson in
governance by the worst for the least.

...filtering the heck out of it

Funny you should mention that.