College Fined for 4 Decades of Draining Pool Water Into Creek

Oregon environmental regulators have fined Lewis and Clark College nearly $78,000 for discharging chlorinated water once a week from an indoor pool into a nearby creek via the campus stormwater system, The Oregonian reported. The discharges have been going on since 1969, when the Zehntbauer Swimming Pavilion opened, and tests last October showed chlorine levels in the creek to be “60 times the amount considered acutely toxic to aquatic organisms,” the newspaper reported. College officials said in a statement they were surprised to learn that draining the pool violated clean-water standards. They immediately halted the discharges and began installing piping to drain the water into the sanitary sewer.