I’m sorry — I’m just not buying the story.
Sure, I believe that we had E.coli in Reservoir 3 over in Washington Park (who could deny it, when we’ve had one…two..and now three tests confirming same?)
But the story I’m not swallowing is the one where the City gets to pat itself on the back for dealing with this latest crisis in a timely and thoughtful manner.
I first started to smell something when I looked at this sequence of events (as outlined by the City of Portland in a news brief PDF yesterday:
Wednesday November 25, 2009
• Routine water sample taken at the outlet of Reservoir 3 in Washington Park.
Thursday November 26, 2009
• Water sample from this site tested positive for Escherichia coli (E. coli), a type of bacteria that indicates contamination by human or animal waste.
Friday November 27, 2009
• Three samples taken upstream and downstream and at the Reservoir 3 outlet.
• Samples taken to lab for testing.
Saturday November 28, 2009
• Repeat sample from Reservoir 3 from Friday, 11/27 found to be positive for E.coli.
(rest deleted)
The stench gets a bit thicker with this latest news announcement from the Portland Water Bureau (captured from the Bureau’s 2 pm 11/29 announcement via their website – emphasis mine)
On Friday, November 28, 2009 the Portland Water Bureau received a confirmation sample indicating potential bacterial contamination in one of the open reservoirs in Washington Park. Since the detection, the bureau has been coordinating with the State Department of Health and the Multnomah County Health Department to provide the best possible information to our customers.
Since the health and safety of our customers is our greatest concern, bureau emergency responders were activated Saturday morning and are working with local media to get correct and concise information out.
Really? If the health and safety of your customers were truly your greatest concern, don’t you think we would have heard something, say, on Thursday? Or Friday, perhaps (when the 2nd sample came back)? If those emergency responders were indeed activated Saturday morning, why did it take until late last night for media outlets to put together a better map than the illegible one the Bureau itself offered up? Why did media outlets have the merest sketches of information, even as late as this morning?
Where have Water Bureau officials been? Matt Davis at the Portland Mercury tells us that Randy Leonard got a phone call on Friday (at his secret undisclosed vacation bunker, one assumes): “They had a confirmed hit that I was phoned about at 1:30 on Friday, but they were then going to do some more tests,” says Leonard. And we already knew that Public Information Officer Jennie Day-Burget was out of town in Bend for the long holiday weekend — but surely the Internet and/or cell phone service reaches the hinterlands?
If I can learn about Ted Wheeler’s skiing accident directly from the man himself at 8 am on a Sunday morning, why can’t I find out more about what happening with our water supply — especially since it’s apparently been of concern to someone for five days now?
And if the answer to these questions are a shrug of the shoulders, a “um, we were on vacation”, or a simple “sorry, we dropped the ball”, SAY SO. Please don’t try to spin it the way Leonard attempts to in Davis’s piece: “E.coli is a common occurrence.”
Tell that to the thousands of Portlanders who might have just inadvertently served a healthy helping of E.coli to their Thanksgiving guests on Thursday alongside the stuffing & mashed potatoes, won’t you?
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Amen. The two- or three-day delay is shocking coming from the supposedly media-savvy Water Bureau. E.coli may be “common”, Mr. Leonard, but it can kill kids.
I think the whole e-coli contamination of reservoir 3 in Washington Park is odd. Was it a deliberate act to bring attention to non-compliance with LT2 rules the fed wants Portland to follow? Was it to make the mayor look bad? And a bunch of us all went out and bought bottled water (which is really useless, as is a glass, for effectively rinsing your toothbrush). Some estaurants in on NW23rd closed up right away (Pasta Pastini) and others just stopped serving tap water.
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