Just a couple more quick thoughts from yesterday's press conference declaring our water E. coli free after the weekend scare.

Though we know that E. coli spreads through feces ("shit"), county health and Water Bureau officials still aren't sure what brought the E. coli to the Washington Park reservoir. It could have come from a bird flying over, a deer or a hiker. "We’ll leave it to your imagination for how that could get in there," said health officer Gary Oxman.

A reporter at last night's press conference asked Randy Leonard and Mayor Adams directly: Is it time to cover our reservoirs? They weren't game for the idea, noting that we're on track to build new reservoirs (like one at Powell Butte) to replace the open ones. In the meantime, says Leonard, “We have the best drinking water in the world and the best safeguards to protect our drinking water.”

Usually the Water Bureau's safeguards work. Remember last summer when the Water Bureau publicly humiliated two skinny dippers who snuck into the Mt. Tabor reservoir?

But though this weekend saw the first ever "boil alert" for Portland water, it marked the 14th time the water has tested positive for E. coli traces throughout our history. Is it dangerous to keep the reservoirs open?

The E. coli that launched the alert was a minute amount, just 24 organisms per 100 milliliters. Beaches in Toronto and Missouri, by contrast, only issue "no swim" warnings when the E. coli levels get about 100 to 126 organisms per milliliter.