Skip to content

Airdrie water safe despite taste, smell

Recent complaints from residents about a funky smell and taste to their water have led the City of Airdrie to issue a notice that local tap water is still safe to drink.

Recent complaints from residents about the smell and taste of their water have led the City of Airdrie to issue a notice that local tap water is still safe to drink.

Kelly McKague, the City’s team lead for water services, said the City has received increased calls from residents in the last two weeks that drinking water had an odorous taste and smell. On Sept. 21, a Facebook post from the City indicated the quality of local tap water has not been impacted.

“There are absolutely no health effects from this whatsoever,” he said. “The City of Calgary’s drinking water always performs better than the Canadian drinking water quality guidelines, and Airdrie gets its water from Calgary. It’s continuously monitored to ensure the safety and excellent quality of the water supply at all times.

“Unfortunately, the treatment plants can't do anything for this taste and odour – it’s just a naturally occurring thing that happens every year.”

McKague said the taste and odour – which one commenter on the City's Facebook post likened to a fish tank  – are due to elevated levels of geosmin.

According to the City’s Facebook post, geosmin is a “compound produced by algae, bacteria and fungus, commonly found in surface water.”

“Because the rivers and reservoirs are living environments, natural occurrences happen with spring runoff and algae growth – basically, the seasonal dying off of bacteria creates a compound called geosmin,” McKague said. “When there’s a fresh rain outside and you can smell that fresh rain, that’s geosmin that you’re smelling.”

According to McKague, the amount of geosmin increases every fall. He said the City of Calgary’s Bearspaw water treatment plant – where Airdrie sources most of its water from – typically records five parts per trillion of geosmin in its water, but that recently spiked to 11.

“The human nose is extremely sensitive to it – you can actually smell it up to five parts per trillion,” he said, adding the amount of geosmin will subside as the days and nights get cooler.

For Airdronians who cannot stand their tap water, using an activated charcoal filter is one way to reduce the taste and smell, McKague added.

“Absorption of carbon seems to help it, but again, it’s strictly a taste and odour issue and has nothing to do with the water quality itself,” he said.

“What it actually smells like is kind of an earthy, musty taste and odour – like fresh overturned rich soils.”

One commenter on the City’s Facebook post said adding lemon to her water was another way to mask the taste.

For more information on Airdrie's drinking water, visit airdrie.ca/waterservices

Scott Strasser, AirdrieToday.com
Follow me on Twitter @scottstrasser19



Comments


No Facebook? No problem.

Here is how you can stay connected to the Airdrie City View and access local news in your community:

Bookmark our homepage for easy access to local news.
Pick up a copy of our newspaper and read local news that you cannot get elsewhere.
Sign up for our FREE newsletters to have local news & more delivered daily to your email inbox.
Download our mobile icon to have access to our news right at your fingertips.

push icon
Be the first to read breaking stories. Enable push notifications on your device. Disable anytime.
No thanks