In the past couple of weeks, the residents of Beeville have noticed an odd smell and taste in the tap water.
After speaking with some people, the most common tastes and smells were, dirt or chemicals. Susan Elliott says since they moved to Beeville two years ago, these kind of water issues are a lot more common than it should be, and lately she doesn’t even drink the tap water because it’s so ‘gross.’ "I think about two weeks ago I started the noticing the water was a little bit funky," says Elliott, "The water here goes from overly chlorinated or very chemical tasting, or dirt. There’s like, no in-between."
KRIS 6 spoke with the City of Beeville to find out what the issue is. Beeville’s City Manager, Joe Montez, says that the reason the water has an odor and taste to it, is because of algae bloom.
The problem we are having is odor and taste of the water processed at the Morrill Water Treatment Plant at Swinney Switch. This problem is a result of Algae Bloom int he lake system. The bloom is created by low water levels, no rain and stagnant water and hot weather. As the sun light heat hits the water it creates an algae bloom. Since we do not have a "pre-treatment process," we draw the raw water straight from the lake into our plant for processing. As we draw water from the lake to process we are also drawing the Algae that comes with the water. To alleviate the problem we are feeding copper sulfate to lessen the effect of the algae. We hope to clear this up within the next 3 to 4 days. The water is safe to drink.
Joe Montez, Beeville City Manager
At this time, Montez says that the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality is testing the water and have not sent results back. But, Montez feels that if it was an urgent matter, results would have been back sooner. The City of Beeville tests their water everyday, thus far, everything is up to regulation for safe drinking water.
KRIS 6 will keep you updated on this water issue.
