Portland water gets crummy grade
According to an outfit called the Environmental Working Group, it's 59th out of 100 big cities in the country in terms of purity. Coming on the heels of last month's E. coli episode, could this latest news cause a redeployment of water bureau resources away from water bottle giveaways and bumper sticker contests?
Of course not. This is Portland.
| Posted at 8:47 AM | Permalink |
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Comments (9)
Come on, according to the H2O department the ranking was only because they were late in turning in the report.
No problem here folks, it's just a paper work issue. Drink up.
Posted by pj | December 14, 2009 9:23 AM
I heard they didn't even include the two e. coli infected reservoirs in the testing for the ranking! Yikes.
Posted by Linda Kruschke | December 14, 2009 10:50 AM
You know this sort of thing wouldn't happen if our Water Department was armed.
Posted by Brian | December 14, 2009 12:12 PM
From Forest to Faucet, we're bringing the most mediocrity you can manage!
I need to trademark that before they use it on the Water Blog.
Posted by MachineShedFred | December 14, 2009 2:12 PM
I'm not convinced Portland water is as pure as the powers that be want to tell us it is, but who is funding the Environmental Working Group? The Trib story didn't address that.
Posted by Talea | December 14, 2009 3:01 PM
"Who is funding the Environmental Working Group?"
It's a mainstream, left wing, commie, pinko, anti-free market Environmental Organization supported by the usual group of mainstream, left-wing, commie, pinko, anti-free market, rich guy Foundations like the William Hewlett Foundation. Accoding to their website they get 71% of funding from Foundation grants and the balance from mostly individuals.
Posted by Greg C | December 14, 2009 3:22 PM
Every morning I am used to putting out a fresh bowl of water for our two cats along with their food. And virtually every morning there was a light orange colored sediment or mineral ring around the inside of their just used water dish. This happened at all times of year. Now that we're living in Reno, we no longer find these mineral and/or sediment deposits on the cats'water dish. I think there are a lot of minerals in Portland water. In fact, we had a hell of a time cleaning up a water ring in our toilets prior to putting our home up for sale. I never had this issue when we lived in Tualatin or other cities. In fact, I would go so far as to say the Portland Water Bureaus is full of hot air when they talk about how "pire" their water is.
Posted by Dave A. | December 14, 2009 4:29 PM
Maybe cover the reservoirs and we could move up the scale.
Posted by John W | December 14, 2009 6:31 PM
Our water quality scientists have been hard at it addressing this study, and here's their response to the study:
http://www.portlandonline.com/water/index.cfm?a=277508&c=39678&nocache=1
It's a little wonky - but if you're interested, you might find it interesting.
-Sarah Bott
Posted by Sarah Bott | December 16, 2009 7:14 PM