What's happening, Portland?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Oh, this again! http://www.thebigfloat.com/

The DEQ assures us that there is most likely only going to be raw sewage in the river occasionally, so hop on in!

Come on in – the water's fine!

Despite public perception (which we are trying to change), the Willamette River is approved for summer swimming, except in the now very rare instances when Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) conditions are present.

With the Big Pipe project now complete, it's expected that a CSO will occur only once every two summers (but very likely never again). You are more likely to see a whale swim up the Willamette than see a CSO in summer! Oregon DEQ states that when CSO conditions are not present, "the Willamette River is safe for swimming and other recreational uses."

[Freeky]

Soooo, how do they know a CSO won't happen?

[Suu]

 

I'd stay the fuck out of that water.

[Forsooth]

Soooo, how do they know a CSO won't happen?

there will be at least one person who might check it once a day, so there will be a lag time of at least 12 hours if a CSO occurs

don't go swimming if there's a big storm, or if there's a cultural festival with lots of spicy foods

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Soooo, how do they know a CSO won't happen?

It only happens when it rains a lot! So, if it's raining, or recently rained, don't go swimming.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

SIMPLE RULE OF THUMB:

If the rain's coming down, the river is "brown". No rain to be seen? The river is clean!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

They just finished The Big Pipe, so last year was the first year the river wasn't full of feces. We'll see how it goes.

[Doktor Howl]

We solved this by just not having any water in our rivers.

[Suu]

SIMPLE RULE OF THUMB:

If the rain's coming down, the river is "brown". No rain to be seen? The river is clean!

Us in the Northeast haven't seen a "clean" river since the 1630s. Though they say they're the best they've been since the 1970s, pretty much when they closed all the textile mills.

[P3nT4gR4m]

We solved this by just not having any water in our rivers.

We solved it by just swimming in shit. No joke - my local surf beach has a brown high water mark. As George Carlin once said "The polio never had a prayer; we were tempered in raw shit!"