In recent months, Mordenites have noticed what has been labelled as an off taste, smell, and even appearance of the city’s tap water. The water has taken on a musty and earthy quality that has sparked concern in the community about its safety.
Morden’s mayor, Nancy Penner, says the city has released a statement regarding the issue.
“The City of Morden just put out a news release just updating the community about . . . the odour and taste [that a] few in the community have been experiencing with our water,” she says. “There's been a bit of Facebook chatter about the taste and odour, and we've been getting a few calls to the city office, so the city put out a news release.”
Mayor Penner says that the release indicates the city is “working hard on trying to mitigate the odour and unpleasant taste.” It also addresses the safety of the water.
“[The release is also] to reassure the community that our drinking water is safe,” she says. “We of course test our drinking water regularly and daily to ensure that our community is getting a safe water supply, so that is not a concern at this point.”
According to the news release, the issue affecting the water is linked to an ongoing matter in Morden — the algal bloom at Lake Minnewasta.
Mayor Penner says that the combination of scarce rainfall in August, the higher temperatures lately, and the lake levels dropping due to water use is conducive to the bloom.
“It's just the perfect window for algae growth, and that then leads to a bit of a musty smell in the water and [a musty] taste,” she says. “The water treatment plant employees [are] working hard to address that taste and odour.”
The treatment plant is actively taking measures to reduce the issue daily, according to Mayor Penner.
“They have implemented an additional treatment process to mitigate the odor,” she says. “We use an ultraviolet system [that] the water passes through.”
The algae at Lake Minnewasta is something that Mayor Penner has been working on with the City of Morden, but there have been delays.
“We had hoped to have the algae ultrasonic system in place this year. We are just running into some regulatory issues and getting . . . how we test and how we monitor the algae control systems [in place],” she says. “We just didn't meet those deadlines this fall, so the equipment will now not go in this fall, because we're getting so late in the season. We had hoped to have it for improved swimming, water quality and . . . to help with the water treatment system, but we will now hold off until next spring.”
Mayor Penner hopes to complete the steps necessary soon so that installation can happen promptly after winter.
“We'll get a really early jump on the start of the installation of the equipment and hopefully we'll be ready for next spring,” she says.
The City of Morden considers the ultrasonic algae systems a solution to the algal bloom, and by extension, the taste and odour of the city’s drinking water.
“It’s supposed to mitigate the amount of algae in lake water. It sends out ultrasonic [waves], and it's supposed to kill the algae that then floats to the bottom of the lake. That would help with the growth of the algae, and that's the anticipated focus. There have been good peer reviews,” says Mayor Penner. “Where it's been used in other lake situations or pond situations, they've been having very good test results, so we're confident we're going to have some good results at the lake, but [once] we get it in place, and we get it up and running, time will tell.”
As for today’s water issue, Mayor Penner says that she is not sure which areas of the community are hit the hardest by the odour and taste.
“I'm just going [on] what I'm hearing from the community, and I haven't chatted with the staff at the water treatment plant, but we do pull a bit of water from the Pembina Valley Water Co-op, . . . so I'm not sure which areas of the city experience the taste and smell, but we're tap water drinkers in our household, [and] I don't notice the odour and taste as much, but my husband says he notices it,” she says. “I'm not sure which areas of town are more prone to the odour and smell.”
Mayor Penner says that the community of Morden’s water concerns are heard.
"The city works hard to provide quality service to our community, [including] drinking water, [which is now] an issue,” she says. “They are working extremely hard to make sure that the drinking water has good taste and odour, but I just want to assure the community that our drinking water is safe to drink and that it is a high priority to the city that we do provide safe drinking water.”
To read Morden’s full drinking water media release, click here. For an earlier article about Morden’s ultrasonic algae control project, see the story published June 28th linked below.
~With files from Robyn Wiebe~