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The Bull Run watershed is the source of Portland's drinking water, and the subject of a constant political fighting over who controls our water, what goes in it, how it is stored and what to do with revenue from selling it.

(Stephanie Yao Long/The Oregonian)

Portland enjoys an ample, tasty supply of water that comes from a pristine jewel of a reservoir system . Yet, as the furor over last week’s decision to dump 38 millions gallons of water possibly tinged with a teenager’s urine suggested, we fight over our water all the time and with unusual intensity.

“The politics of water in most places is that there isn’t much. You turn on the tap, it comes out. That’s all there is to it,” said Paul Gronke, a political scientist at Reed College. “Things are different here.”

That’s an understatement. During the past two decades, city leaders and their constituents have fought almost non-stop about what’s in Portland’s drinking supply, how it’s held and treated, what revenues from selling it should buy and who decides.

Some highlights: The 2001 battle over whether to cover the reservoirs after the 9/11 terrorist attacks; the failed Water Bureau billing software fiasco of 2003; the controversy generated by Commissioner Randy Leonard's 2005-2011 attempts to broaden the bureau's mission to include "hydroparks," "water houses" and high-tech public restrooms; and the City Council's 2012 attempt to add fluoride.

Voters overturned that decision in 2013. This year, they’ll consider wresting control of water and sewer operations from the City Council and instead creating an independent water district board.

At the heart of all these debates are two consistent themes: First, water and sewer bills keep rising in Portland. Careful analysis shows that the controversial projects that have drawn headlines are responsible for a tiny percentage of the increases, but that kind of nuance doesn't matter to irate and possible confused ratepayers.

“When people discover that the prices are higher in Portland than, say, Phoenix or Los Angeles, they’re amazed because it seems so counterintuitive. It makes no sense,” said Mike Riley, a pollster who has worked for proponents of changing the way Portland water is governed. “A decision like the one to get rid of all that water last week reinforces the notion that the bureau has kind of a callous disregard for ratepayers.”

(City leaders say the decision to drain Reservoir 5 came at little to no added cost to ratepayers, given that Portland has a surplus of water at the moment and the crews doing the draining and cleaning will not be paid overtime.)

Second, geographic factors play a role: On the West Coast, political scientists say they see a higher inherent distrust of government -- a frontier libertarian streak, even in liberal Portland -- than elsewhere in the United States.

The two campaigns

Read more from both proponents and opponents of the Portland water district ballot measure at their websites. Find opponents at

and supporters at

And Portlanders, at least compared to people elsewhere, are proud and protective of their water supply: “I notice when I go to another city and their water doesn’t taste as good as ours,” Gronke said. “I know I’m not the only one.”

That civic pride amps up emotions anytime a decision looms over, say, whether to follow new federal mandates on open-air reservoirs.

"If you're talking about something that relates to Mt. Tabor, it's going to be evaluated through a political prism," said Commissioner Nick Fish, who runs both the two city utility bureaus. "You can't have a debate that is strictly about the merits of a particular decision."

Portland’s quirky commission form of government is one more reason water is a politically volatile topic. In most major U.S. cities, the public face of taxpayer-owned utilities is a professional manager, appointed by a City Council or city manager and usually someone who has spent their entire career in the field they manage.

In Portland, city commissioners serve as day-to-day bosses of public agencies, and bureau directors are political appointees. Critics of the Water Bureau note that bureau administrator David Shaff had no utility experience when Leonard appointed him in 2005. Shaff had been an aide to the commissioner and, before that, the city’s longtime chief labor negotiator.

The unique setup gives critics easy targets for their ire: Fish, who is up for reelection in May, has only run the Water Bureau since last summer. Yet he's become the public punching bag for water district proponents. Their recent radio advertisement encouraged voters to “tell Fish he’s out of water.”

“Sometimes I feel like some of these more ham-handed decisions are reflective of a lack of experience among the top decision makers,” said Kent Craford, a former lobbyist for large industrial customers and now the leading proponent of the water district measure. “To be honest, I feel for Nick. I don’t agree with him on this one, but I feel for him.”

-- Anna Griffin