E. coli found in reservoir, Portland issues largest boil water alert ever

At a press conference at noon Friday, Water Bureau Director David Shaff said this was the largest boil water alert in the city's history, impacting some 670,000 water users. The source of the contamination was Mount Tabor reservoirs 1 and 5. The alert includes the city of Portland, but also the cities of Tigard, King City, parts of Gresham and other districts (see below for full list.) "Until further notice, all Portland Water Bureau customers and those in the affected areas should boil all tap water used for drinking, food preparation, tooth brushing and ice for at least one minute. Ice or any beverages prepared with un-boiled tap water on or after May 20 should be discarded," the alert reads.

Source

Over half a million people here in Portland with contaminated drinking water as of today, officially. Two days ago the water in my house starting running grey and fizzy, and on top of the water is a oil-slick like sheen. Possibly plant lipids or something, not saying it's contaminated with oil or anything.

I have no proof the two are connected, but it seems odd the water in my house turns to fizzy dishwater looking stuff two days ago and today we get an alert out water supply is tainted with E Coli. I was on bottled water before the alert came out because of this, and I'm not terribly worried about the effects of e coli, but I am upset that it took them two days before saying anything.

I got my call from the water dept today, which was nice, but it was after I already dumped my ice trays and stopped using tap water. Being an adult in good health it's not a big deal, but for small children or elderly in the area two days delay seems too much to be.

I was at the local safeway stocking up on more bottled water and it was an absolute mad house with pallets of water laying torn apart down the isles and lines stretching all over the store.

Just figured I'd share since I didn't see it mentioned on ATS, if it was feel free to close this thread.

I also find it interesting that Portland has fought off both fluoride and filtering (filtering one confused me a bit but honestly haven't looked too deeply) of its water supply and now the largest alert ever. Hmmmmm. Someone trying to scare someone?

Have they "ruled out" terrorism ?

Or corporate espionage ?

How 'bout sabotage ?

Still baffles me how all of these resevoirs are unprotected from aerial and man introduced toxins/etc.
What happens if a sick bird with some strange flu dive-bombs into the resevoir and contaminates the entire water supply? Not even a month ago I saw a post on here about some teenagers urinating in a water resevoir and the entire thing had to be emptied... Seriously what the heck? It's okay though - the rich elite do not drink tap water, ever. Seriously can you imagine the obamas and bidens drinking poor people water? Heck no they have $20 bottled water

This happened a few years back, they waited two days for that announcement too, I guess that's common practice since they do have to have a number of tests come in positive. The difference this time is that there are multiple reservoirs involved, rather then one, so that is why it's effecting such a large area. What I don't get is the rush for bottled water... it takes what, 3-4 minutes to boil the tap water? Not that hard.

The reservoirs are now offline and being flushed - my bet is the notice will be lifted tomorrow.

As for the open reservoirs- they're historical, many people prefer they remain as is, uncapped (by the way, it's not Portland's only water storage, there are underground stores as well)

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ETA: I don't have foamy, gray water and haven't heard of anyone else that has that either

originally posted by: xuenchen
Have they "ruled out" terrorism ?

Or corporate espionage ?

How 'bout sabotage ?

I'm not sure to be honest, I've done some searching around online and aside from the usual "press release" style articles from the standard local news agencies there doesn't seem to be anyone talking about it anywhere. I can't speak for the whole city but in my area everyone seems to be a buzz and chatting everyone up about the water thing so I was just a little surprised not to hear it mentioned on ATS as I know there are plenty of locals here.

I also wonder about how long people are going to stay stocked with water. You can still boil it to drink, and it's OK for washing so they say, but the way my water looks and smells I've been using bottled water for hand washing and everything else today. I'm weary to shower in it but I guess I don't have much choice.

I probably sound paranoid but it's not the ecoli that worries me, while it still possible I have an intrusion in my water system at the house somewhere causing the foamy gray water, my water meter is normal so I'm not entirely confident that it's ONLY ecoli in there.

I've been looking around and can't find reports of e coli water causing foamy/grey tap, but it seems like if the water is rife with bacteria to the point of naturally carbonating itself it's far too nasty to bathe in.

I just want to be clear the foamy grey water is not the "official statement" they simply say there is a chance of getting the runs so boil your drinking water. No mention from them of visible change to the water, but the stuff running out of my taps seems to be far worse than they are describing.

With regard to the guy peeing in the reservoir....
What sort of cover does it have to prevent birds from pooping in the water?
Are there sniper teams posted to shoot any wildlife that might pee or poop in or near the water?
There is a good reason that municipal water supplies are chlorinated.
a reply to: James1982

originally posted by: LadySkadi


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ETA: I don't have foamy, gray water and haven't heard of anyone else that has that either

Thanks for reporting, I was afraid to ask my neighbors to avoid looking like a loon.

Would you mind doing an experiment for me, if you don't mind?

If you have a large clear container (gallon+) could you fill it with water, let it sit a minute and then inspect the surface and look through it?

I'm not doubting you at all, I only noticed at first because my toilet runs sometimes and I had to remove the tank top to adjust the lever and noticed the water was nasty. Obviously everyone gets a layer of sediment collecting in their toilet tank, but this was the water itself not a layer on the bottom.

I figured it was possible that a bubble caused some sediment to get stirred up, so I took a clean plastic bin and filled it with some water from the tap. Almost instantly the top started getting a seafoam like stuff on it, and the water was gray and not very clear.

It's very difficult to notice on smaller quantities of water like a cup or bowl, and can't be seen by watching the tap, but if I fill up any larger sized container or anything else I usually get this skummy foam stuff.

It's not consistent either, it comes and goes, when the toilet tank water is dirty so is my kitchen tap, when one is clean so is the other. This tells me the water coming into my house is tainted, although it's possible there is an intrusion where the pipe comes into the foundation or something, but my meter isn't showing anything large enough to allow for that.

Like I said I'm not doubting anything you said, I'm just curious if others can recreate the same thing I've seen. Most people probably don't have large pools of standing tap water sitting around and rarely look into their toilet tank so it seems possible that it wouldn't have been noticed by that many people.

Or my pipes suck and it's an incredible coincidence that the same day (of the positive test result, not the public info release) my pipes decided to quit on me. Still possible and I'm not ruling that out, I'd love if some local members would be able to do this test, although I fully understand if you don't want a big bucket of water sitting in your house the city just said had e Coli in it

I dont think a lot of people realise how bad some of the infrastructer is in this country. Had a friend that was a city council member in a small town and they needed over 3 million in upgrades. This was just a little 700 person country town. In the big pcture water is becoming a increasingly tight resource and in the end the wars fought over oil will pale to the ones that will be fought over water.

a reply to: James1982

Well, since I'm still within my editing time frame, figured I'd save myself a new post... I did not see any discoloration, sediment, film or any other strange things in my water after filling up two large, glass containers (not sure the dimensions, smaller then a toilet tank, larger then a crock pot) I used two samples because there's a filter in the kitchen, but not in the bath ... the reservoirs serve different populations and our water may be coming from different sources.

I'll throw ya a bone though, for the conspiracy-minded ... IF there is something going on other then what they say, would it not be a good cover-up to take multiple reservoirs offline in order to conceal the location of (and thus the more precise population directly affected by) the actual contamination?

Cheers

a reply to: rdw134
Didnt the road warrior signify that concept

originally posted by: ThinkYouSpeak
Still baffles me how all of these resevoirs are unprotected from aerial and man introduced toxins/etc.

What happens if a sick bird with some strange flu dive-bombs into the resevoir and contaminates the entire water supply? Not even a month ago I saw a post on here about some teenagers urinating in a water resevoir and the entire thing had to be emptied... Seriously what the heck? It's okay though - the rich elite do not drink tap water, ever. Seriously can you imagine the obamas and bidens drinking poor people water? Heck no they have $20 bottled water

Can I see that post because it makes no sense. The bladder is a clean organ and urine is drinkable.