How a city works...

[Lamplighter]

Back in the early 50's, like Chicago's river that caught fire,
the Willamette River was a cess pool running through Oregon.
But voters made some important decisions that established
the environmental character of Oregon and the City of Portland.

Here is a link to a well-written article in The Oregonian about sewage !

I recommend it... from beginning to end.

OregonLive.com
The Oregonian
David Stabler
February 25, 2012

River of sewage flows from Sellwood to North Portland treatment plant each day

Portland's water rises in a land of mountains and mist,
a protected wilderness of beauty where clear, cold streams run as they did
when Native Americans drank from them 10,000 years ago.

But after the city's Bull Run water arrives in taps, toilets, showers and industrial pipes,
it heads to one place, a place most of us don't think much about.
A wastewater treatment plant is a relatively new system of treating urban sewage,
where everything must work all the time, day and night.
It's an intermediate step in a process of continuous recycling between sky and ocean.
If a pipe leaks or a pump quits, redundant machinery, including backup systems of backups systems, averts disaster.

Sewage waits for no one.