Historically, much of Utah's water has had a bit of a kick, its own noticeable aftertaste born of high minerals, salts and other naturally occurring compounds.
"Over the decades communities (particularly on the west side) had wells with higher mineral content, and residents were fine with that type of water flavor," said Richard Bay, assistant general manager of Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District.
Deseret Morning News graphic
Groundwater contamination
Requires Adobe Acrobat.
Utahns are considerably more discerning these days. If they detect something off in their ice water — even if a taste is perfectly harmless, health-wise — they call their local water guys and complain.
"Now, the children growing up, they expect something more," Bay said.
The sometimes-musty flavor, courtesy of river-dwelling algae by-products, was recently removed from water supplied to Layton residents from the Weber Basin Water Conservancy District, which completed a multimillion-dollar upgrade to its treatment plant.
"Kind of mossy; kind of grassy," was the way Weber general manager Tage Flint characterized the water's pretreated flavor.
The treatment is all for perception — changing the flavor doesn't change the nutritional qualities of the water either way.
Bay's district is dealing with the flavor issue in the cleanup of two massive plumes of contaminated groundwater in southwest Salt Lake Valley, resulting from decades of Kennecott mining operations.
According to a 1990 consent decree, Kennecott is responsible for purifying the water (or paying to purify it — Jordan Valley water is doing the actual work for the eastern plume). The standard of purification is 500 parts per million of total dissolved solids (salts and minerals) in the western plume, and 800 parts per million in the eastern plume.
Those standards are quite adequate as far as health is concerned. As far as flavor, however, they're not — people who fill their glasses up at the tap start grimacing and pouring the water out at about 500 parts per million.
Thus, Jordan Valley water will kick in an estimated $6 million of its own money, on top of the total $104 million cleanup cost, to reduce dissolved solids to 250 parts per million, keeping people from calling to complain about a metallic taste in their tea.
In addition, many of Jordan Valley's customers — cities, water agencies — draw from wells with a higher salinity or mineral concentration and mix it with Jordan Valley's more purified water to reduce the, ah, headier bouquets.
"All of our 19 member agencies have come to rely on the pristine quality of water we deliver, so it's important to us to have this new source equal to that," Bay said.
Ironically, however, after agreements get finalized this summer and "reverse osmosis" treatment plants get built and treatment of the contaminated water gets under way a few years from now, Jordan Valley and Kennecott (which will purify most of the western plume itself) will have to be careful not to purify it too much.
The treatment equipment will purify the water all the way to 50 parts per million. To Utah tastes, that's just as bad as 800 parts per million as far as flavor is concerned — water at 50 parts per million strikes Utah palates as flat and uninteresting. Thus, Jordan Valley and Kennecott will actually mix some of the more concentrated water back into the purified stuff.
E-mail: aedwards@desnews.com