Smelly Water Triggers Flood of Complaints

By Jorge Casuso

June 18 -- Santa Monica’s drinking water has an unpleasant taste and smell but is safe to drink, City and State water officials said Thursday.

The flavor and odor – described as earthy, musty and moldy – is due to the persistent growth of blue-green algae in the State Water Project’s Castaic Lake, which supplies water to Santa Monica, as well as to half a dozen other nearby cities.

So far some 100 Santa Monicans have complained of the unpleasant odor, which “is not uncommon in warm summer months, according to City officials.

“Typically it is much more minimal,” said Miriam Cardenas, the principal chemist for the City’s water department. “In past years, we would get one or two people who notice it. I’ve been here 18 years and we’ve never had so many calls.”

Castaic Lake, which supplies water to the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, already treated the lake’s algae on June 10, and has been asked to do so a second time, MWD officials said.

“We will work with them to schedule that as soon as possible,” said Jill T. Wicke, water system operations manager for the water district, a cooperative of 26 cities and water agencies that serve 18 million people.

MWD -- which filters and disinfects the water, and then delivers it to water agencies throughout the region -- also made operational changes at several of its treatment plants to minimize the problem,

“Unfortunately, we aren’t able to correct the problem in our treatment plants,” Wicke said, “but we are retrofitting our filtration plants with an ozone process that will help eliminate these problems in the future.”

Residents of Los Angeles and Ventura counties began contacting their local water agencies this month after noticing the unpleasant taste and odor of the water, which is caused by a compound called geosmin that is produced by the growth of algae in freshwaters, MWD officials said.

Typically, levels of the compound increase in summer months when the warmer weather accelerates algae growth.

People with sensitive palettes can detect geosmin in water at levels as low as 5 parts-per-trillion, officials said. Drinking water recently treated at Metropolitan’s Joseph Jensen Filtration Plant in Granada Hills had geosmin levels over 20 parts-per-trillion.

Many Santa Monicans began to contact the City’s water department after smelling the unpleasant odor in their showers, Cardenas said.

“Some think there’s something wrong with their pipes,” Cardenas said. “Generally, you can smell and taste things better in warm water. About half (of those who called) noticed it in the shower.”

Cardenas suggests chilling the water to make the smell and taste less noticeable. Boiling the water, she added, is unnecessary.

“The easiest way is to chill it,” she said. “Unless you’re very sensitive you won’t notice it.”

Besides Santa Monica, MWD member water agencies impacted by the problem include the cities of Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Burbank, Compton, Glendale, San Fernando, Santa Monica and Torrance.

Also impacted are the Central Basin and West Basin municipal water districts in Los Angeles County, as well as the Calleguas Municipal Water District and Las Virgenes Municipal Water District in Ventura County.

The MWD, which serves six counties, imports water from the Colorado River and Northern California to supplement local supplies. It also helps its members to develop increased water conservation, recycling, storage and other water-management programs.