James and Kate Morgan’s coffee house on North Main Street depends on water. So it’s pretty alarming when the water tastes funny.
“Yesterday we noticed a very definite — well, I don’t know how to describe it — my husband called it a mushroomy kind of smell and a horrible taste to go with that,” Kate Morgan said today.
The Morgans couldn’t serve any of their espresso drinks or brew their coffees. By 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, they gave up, closed Morgan’s Coffee House and went home, but not before they called the city water utility and had someone report to take a sample.
Today, the problem has disappeared and the Morgans are back in business.
Were the Morgans crazy in believing their water tasted bad? No, and they were hardly alone.
Salisbury’s water utility received numerous complaints Wednesday from customers who described a musty, earthy odor and taste to their city water. The smell seemed especially noticeable when they were using hot water to do things such as boil potatoes, wash clothes or drink coffee.
Residents in towns and cities upstream of Salisbury along the Yadkin River also have reported similar funny tastes in their tap water. Utility officials here and in those other municipalities have compared notes and blame their odor and taste problems on a surprising culprit for this time of year: algae.
Barbara Sifford, water resources manager for Salisbury, more specifically blames organic algae byproducts. Even more specific, she identifies two types of biological compounds released by decaying algae — geosmin and 2 methylisoborneol (MIB).
Sifford first noticed the smell herself Tuesday while she was washing her hands with hot water.
Already cognizant of the troubles Winston-Salem had experienced last week with funny tasting water, Sifford immediately began feeding carbon into the water system to absorb the compounds.
The Salisbury utility also started a second carbon feed at the river pump station, where the city has its intake from the Yadkin River.
But by Wednesday morning, Salisbury water customers were calling the city to complain about their funny tasting and smelling water.
“It’s not harmful,” Sifford said of the water. “It’s not going to hurt you, but it will have an earthy, musty, dirty smell.
“It really smells a lot like pure river water.”
Adding carbon to the water system is the only known remedy. Sifford hopes the compounds will be flushed out of the system by this weekend.
“I think we’re on the downhill side of it now,” she said.
Algae in the Yadkin River is much more predominant in the summer months. The Salisbury water treatment plant usually feeds in carbon only from April to October.
In talking with state environmental officials and biologists, utility managers aren’t sure exactly what happened to cause the current algae problem.
The winter’s unusual cold, slow water flows and ice blankets, followed by recent heavy rains could have possibly stirred the river and flushed out some decaying algae.
So goes one theory.
Other theories suggest that cold temperatures stressed some hibernating algae and released the compounds, or that chemical fertilizer runoff or an animal waste spill could have led to a rare algae bloom.
Sifford consulted Wednesday with Ron Hargrove, a water quality inspector with Forsyth County, and a state water quality official from the Winston-Salem region.
Rather than risk the funny water again, Sifford intends to keep feeding 200 pounds of carbon a day into the system for the foreseeable future.
She already has placed a second order for 5,000 pounds of carbon.
Just to be sure that the city is making the correct call in treating the water for the suspected compounds, Sifford has sent off samples to a laboratory in Indiana.
Kate Morgan said her coffee house’s first clue that something was wrong with the water came Tuesday evening when a customer complained about his coffee’s tasting bad.
The Morgans agreed, but they had other coffee brewed earlier in the day that was not affected by the smell.
Wednesday morning, they couldn’t tap any good water.
“You realize how vulnerable you are with a resource like that,” Kate Morgan said.
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