The Ira Keller fountain is back up and running, after someone poured a ton of soap into it this week, causing mountains of suds.

That is not funny, says the Water Bureau, laying out the costs when this occurs:

We know the public is paying attention to the recent acts of vandalism and graffiti at the fountain. We know how inconvenient it is when people stop by and find the fountain off. Administrator David Shaff talked to a family group of six people yesterday afternoon about what had happened.

Shaff’s comments to them included the following:

• Protecting public health is critical to the fountain operations. When the fountain is overloaded with detergents, it’s hard on skin — and worse when splashed into the eyes of the child. We add defoaming agents — but eventually we have to put the water into the sewer system and start over.

• The fountain refill requires 75,000 gallons of water. That’s more water than the average residential household uses in one year.

• Draining and replacing water has costs. To do a refill costs about $1,000 in combined sewer and water costs.

• The chemicals required to disinfect the water to a level comparable to a wading pool add another $100.

• Then there’s staff time. The operating engineer is not completing other fountain-related repairs and maintenance when he is spending many hours cleaning the Ira Keller Forecout Fountain. He takes pride in the clean look of the fountain at its best.

We are working with police and the bureau’s security specialists to prevent future incidents. We’d prefer not to go into too much detail on this — but we will see that legal remedies are pursued as we can. What’s happening at Keller is criminal activity. People in the neighborhood can and we hope will report suspicious activity to our security specialists at 503-823-6084. We respond.

Damn, that’s a lot of water.