Portland has decided not to turn 35 million gallons of peed-in water into waste after all. Rather than throw out the water sullied by a wayward teenager, the city will re-route the contents of its Mount Tabor reservoir to another, empty reservoir to "see how long it stays fresh and clear," Portland Water Bureau spokeswoman Jaymee Cuti told the Associated Press Wednesday.

The trouble began when Dallas Swonger was caught on security cameras peeing into the Portland reservoir in April (he insists he only peed on a nearby wall). The incident was the second in three years. As in 2011, Portland announced it would discard the urinated-in water. "Our customers have an expectation that their water is not deliberately contaminated," David Shaff, Portland's water bureau administrator, said in April.

The concentration of one man's pee across the reservoir, as we calculated, is minuscule. It's a questionable contamination risk compared to, for instance, the various animals and wildlife that interact with the open-air reservoir. After the 2011 incident, Shaff said of wildlife, "We fish out animals or things that have blown in all the time," and the city doesn't shut down or drain the reservoir at those times.

Portland was originally going to drain the water into its waste system, but the city is now preserving the water in a different reservoir, though not (as yet) for drinking or consumption. The AP writes that "some neighborhood residents… don't want to see empty reservoirs at Mount Tabor," so the city is re-routing the urinated-in water to the empty Reservoir 6 to see what happens "when uncirculated water is left in [a reservoir]." After the water was moved, Portland finished refilling the embattled reservoir Saturday and resumed supplying its water to customers.