Officials aren't sure yet exactly why tap water smelled and tasted so terrible earlier this year in areas of Salt Lake and Utah counties, but they do know it cost tens of thousands of dollars to make it drinkable.
"This is the worst problem that I've experienced in 30 years," said LeRoy Hooton Jr., director of the Salt Lake Department of Public Utilities. The department fielded more than 300 telephone calls in two days last March.Most of the calls came from residents living along the East Bench, although the objectionable but safe water went to customers in an area bordered by Wasatch Boulevard, 7800 South, 700 East and 900 South.
The water, which has been described as "swampy," came from the Salt Lake Aqueduct, which carries Provo River water held in the Deer Creek Reservoir to Salt Lake residents.
A study is under way by the Central Utah Water Conservancy District, which operates the Deer Creek Reservoir, to determine just why the water went bad, although too much algae in the reservoir and the Provo River may be to blame.
Before he presents the study findings to the district board, chief engineer Sheldon Talbot said he wants to examine test results now being processed in a California lab.
Hooton said after listening to two days of complaints, the department turned off the supply from the aqueduct and drained 500 acre-feet of water out of the Mountain Dell Reservoir.
"That was water I was trying to save for a dry year," Hooton said. "It could be close," this year if rain doesn't fill the reservoir located in Parleys Canyon, he said.
The city also flushed hundreds of thousands of gallons out of the water system by opening up fire hydrants, Hooton said, noting the irony of releasing water needed in a dry year. "We had to waste water," he said.
While Hooton was kept busy trying to placate irate water users, Nick Sefakis, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Salt Lake City, was trying to figure out how to make the aqueduct water usable.
The Metropolitan Water District, which sells water to both Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County, started by turning on equipment in the Little Cottonwood Water Treatment Plant in Sandy that hasn't been used since 1978.
Then, the plant was flushed and cleaned and a company from Houston was hired to scrub down all 41 miles of the aqueduct between the plant and Deer Creek Reservoir.
That's the first time the aqueduct has ever been cleaned, although the job was partially done in 1954. The cost was about $67,000, Sefakis said, plus up to another $75,000 for the additional treatment.
But, he promised, the extra expense won't show up on water bills. Nor will the cost of daily odor and taste tests now being done on the water processed at the plant. Before, such tests were only done "as needed," Sefakis said.
The Central Utah Water Conservancy District is testing water several times a day in its Orem treatment plant before sending it along in the aqueduct and has reduced much of the problem through aeration and carbon filtering.
That's good news to Orem residents, who had to put up with the foul water for more than a month while their water district searched for the best way to treat it.