[WalterBright]

There was a photo a while back of somebody urinating in a reservoir, and there was subsequent outrage and calls to put an enormously expensive cover over the reservoir (i.e. lake), etc.

Never mind that all the wildlife that urinates/defecates in it, the dead animals in it, etc., which nobody minds.

[Terr_]

Minor devil's-advocacy: It's reasonable to score the risk from human material/pathogens higher than animal ones.

[Spooky23]

Not really, it's pure hysteria.

Urine is generally sterile, it's actually an accepted first aid practice to urinate on a bandage or create a urine paste to treat a wound in the field in emergency conditions.

[niels_olson]

What this really ignores is all the inland cities that use the same water source, one down-stream from the next, from the great lakes to the gulf of Mexico. I toured one of those sewage treatment plants in 1993 (1). It remains one of the most beautiful visions of my life: clear water flowing over algea-covered wooden beams, glowing in the natural sunlight, no odor whatsoever.

You can't make this stuff up. Civil engineers are amazing.

Edit: also, as per my other comment, urine, in the voided stream, is not sterile, and even if it were, certainly contains all the building blocks for bacterial growth.

(1) https://encrypted.google.com/maps/place/Johnson+County+Waste...

[pitaj]

Is it civil engineering? I thought that hydraulics was a mechanical engineering field.

[mgkimsal]

it might be reasonable to start with that assumption, but actually do tests to determine what's more dangerous. then put processes in place to clean the water from the dangerous stuff (from both humans and animals)

[moultano]

Urine is sterile.

[niels_olson]

As a pathology resident, I assure you, the voided stream is not sterile, and definitely has all the building blocks necessary for bacterial growth.

That said, inland cities all recycle water. And they generally return water into the rivers that is cleaner than what they took out.

[Terr_]

Only before it starts leaving the body.