Portland teen denies urinating in water, causing authorities to discard 38m gallons of it

Dallas Swonger insists he urinated near the reservoir, not in it

The water goes directly into people's homes in Portland (Jami Dwyer/Flickr Creative Commons )

A Portland teenager accused of urinating in a reservoir, causing officials to decide to drain 38 million gallons of drinking water from the lake, has denied relieving himself directly in the water – instead insisting he urinated near it.

Portland officials decided to “discard” the drinking water after a teenager was videotaped allegedlly urinating in a city reservoir.

Three teenagers were apprehended by police and the 50-million-gallon reservoir was taken offline for testing.

But in an interview with Vocativ, Portland resident Dallas Swonger was less than repentant after admitting to urinating near the river.

Swonger said he was skating with some friends at about 1am when he needed to go to the toilet and decided to relieve himself against the wall of Reservoir Five.

"I was like, 'Dudes I have to p*** so bad,'" Swonger said. "So I just went over to the wall [of the reservoir]. I leaned up against the wall and p***** on it. Right there on the wall, dude. I don't know else how to describe it."

But city officials disagree with his version of events. "When you see the video, he's leaning right up because he has to get his little wee wee right up to the iron bars," Portland Water Bureau administrator Davd Shaff told the Oregonian. "There's really no doubt what he's doing."

The teenager dismissed officials decision to discard the water as “f****** retard” and asked “like, how can they do that?”

“How can they be like, 'Yeah, we're gonna flush all that water,'" he added. "Dude, I've seen dead birds in there. During the summer time I've see hella dead animals in there. Like dead squirrels and shit. I mean, really, dude?

"Everybody thinks it's funny and a joke and I'm going to be on the news," he continued. "It's no f****n' joke, dude. I don't want people thinkin' that Dallas is dumb ass because he pissed in the f****n' water.

Remarkably this is not the first time the water authorities in Portland have had to drain a reservoir in the area. Three years ago the city drained a 7.5-million-gallon reservoir at the same Mount Tabor location.