Water

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

Have other Davis-area folks been noticing a strong bleach / swimming-pool chlorine sort of smell to their tap water this past week?

(I have, strong enough that I wasn't comfortable drinking it, and I called the MWRA about it last night, but their "24-hour" taste & odor line is just a voicemail box. I plan to try to get a human on the phone tomorrow, and it would be helpful to know how far the problem extends.)

Comments

[thespian.livejournal.com]

en ki is having problems with the purity of water?

huh.

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

Not here.

[mattdm.livejournal.com]

Normally the water here is purified with ozone, which makes it taste way better than that in most cities. When I was in Indianapolis over Christmas, I could barely stand to drink the stuff, which goes to show how spoiled I am.

Sometimes here when there are problems with the ozone system, they fall back to using chlorine. I hadn't noticed (and like I said, I've become generally sensitive to it), but it is quite certainly at safe-to-drink levels (because most of it is eliminated as part of the purification process). However, if you're concerned (or just don't like the taste), let the water sit for a while before drinking it. Or use a Brita filter.

Davis Square water

[riamwra.livejournal.com]

mattdm is correct - we use ozone as the primary disinfectant for the drinking water; however, we've never experienced any problems with the system or reverted to free chlorine.

en_ki - your call will be returned this morning. If you ever have a real emergency, the staffed 24-hour numbers are posted on www.mwra.com.

You will also find all our water quality data there

Re: Davis Square water

[ron_newman]

I'm guessing from what you posted, and your LJ username, that you work for the MWRA? If so, thanks for responding here.

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

That's what happens when you delegate, I guess.

Re: Davis Square water

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

Hi Davis Sq Water. I was wondering if you had any comments about "unregulated pollutants" in the Somerville water. Recently, there has been all this publicity in the press. Is the Somerville water minimally and "technically" safe or does it go beyond what EPA demands, and how?

http://www.ewg.org/node/27005

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

Heh.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

you know, I'm glad someone got it. or, as I said to someone in IM this morning:

this is probably why my family thinks I have no sense of humour, you know.

I make jokes, I just apparently make them in Sumerian.

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

I didn't get it when I first saw it this morning, but after I'd had my coffee, the brain cells started firing. :)

[ron_newman]

Sadly, I had to look up "en ki" in Wikipedia before I understood.

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't really know all that much about Sumerian mythology, but I will always remember Enki as "that god who spooged the Tigris." :)

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

And semen smells like bleach. It all makes sense now!

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

OK, I really shouldn't have read that while taking a sip of tea!

Re: Davis Square water

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

I'm talking about this report: http://www.ewg.org/tap-water/MassachusettsDrinkingWaterQualityReport/

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

OK, looking at the FAQ question on chlorine odors (http://www.mwra.com/04water/html/qual4concerns.htm#chlorine), it sounds like the MWRA considers this normal and safe and recommends using a pitcher in the fridge to reduce the smell. I can live with that, but the sudden change is a surprise, especially after living in the area for years without a change.

From your comment and from the FAQ, it doesn't seem like this change is expected: normally it comes with higher water usage in the summer, and there haven't been any problems that you know of. Is that correct?

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

I had a look at the intergoogs and I'm guessing Ria Convery, MWRA communications director.

(but maybe she can't look at this page anymore because we used bad words up above. :( )

My water does NOT smell at all...

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

??

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm a little worried, given that nobody else seems to have the problem, that this is actually a problem with the plumbing in my house or on my street or something; but I would figure that if it were, say, backflow from a laundry machine or something, that there would be other things wrong with the water, and there don't seem to be.

Ooops. I was talking to riamwra

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I mixed the username with the thread subject line...

[cfox.livejournal.com]

I noticed a light smell on the water a few days ago, and didn't think anything of it; I remembered from when I lived in Cambridge, that they would sometimes switch between chlorine and chloramine additives depending on the weather (chloramine breaks down to release chlorine slowly for a week or so), so I assumed that the cold snap meant there was more of whichever left in the water due to it evaporating more slowly. Come to think of it, though, Somerville water hasn't smelled of chlorine for me before.

I'm in the West corner of Somerville, just North of North St. and Powderhouse Blvd. if it matters.

[kylenffxi.livejournal.com]

I've never noticed a chlorine smell in the water in our apartment building on Grove St., but we're in the process of moving down the road to a condo near Highland & Willow Ave. right now and I definitely noticed a chlorine smell and slightly blue-tinted water there the first time I filled up the tub with water. I'm a little bit worried because we keep aquatic turtles as pets and will be using that water to fill up their tanks...

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

Yep, we keep fish and now we're keeping the water in a bowl for a day or so before putting it in their tanks. We dechlorinate with the basic Top Fin solution too.