Algae causing taste, odor problems in region’s drinking water.
Ken Ruinard/Independent Mail In parts of Anderson and Pickens counties, the tap water tastes and smells so bad right now that some dogs won’t drink it.
"I feel bad because I didn’t realize at first that she wasn’t drinking what was coming from our sink," Shead said.
So I started giving her bottled water just like we are using.
Shead is one of nearly 200,000 customers in the Upstate whose drinking water is provided by the Anderson Regional Joint Water System.
In the span of 10 days, regional water system officials saw taste- and odor-producing compounds jump to roughly five times the amount they can effectively handle with treatments at the Anderson plant headquarters.
(Photo: Ken Ruinard/Independent Mail) When water system officials do a lake treatment, they have crews sometimes apply a copper-based algaecide on a portion of the lake, then follow that with a hydrogen-peroxide based algaecide around coves and docks.
"We can’t treat algae before we can see it," Willett said.
"We don’t want to do any more to the lake than we have to."
The project will allow regional water system officials to use more advanced oxidation processes when treating the water before it is ready for the tap.