Montgomery, Bucks County Residents Complain Of Water Smelling Musty, Tasting Like Dirt
LOWER MORELAND TOWNSHIP, Pa. (CBS) -- Water woes in parts of Bucks and Montgomery Counties. Residents are complaining their water smells musty and doesn't taste very good.
It turns out the problem has been linked to an algal bloom in the Neshaminy Creek.
Talking with neighbors out here, they say that water smells musty, earthy and literally tastes like dirt.
The complaints started coming in about two weeks ago. The water is safe to drink but we've learned mother nature is to blame.
As some people turn on the tap in Lower Moreland Township, Montgomery County, they say their water smells and tastes like dirt.
"It just smells bad. We can run it and as soon as you run it for a couple minutes in our sink it starts to smell bad," Larry Posey said.
The water supplying east Montgomery County and parts of lower Bucks County comes from a reservoir fed by the Neshaminy Creek.
"There must be something going on because it's worse now than it used to be," Posey said.
Aqua America tells CBS3 it's been receiving complaints for about two weeks that the water is stinky. Tests have shown with the hot weather and lack of rainfall a harmless alga has formed in the water, producing the chemical compound Methylisoborneol, or MIB.
"We've been seeing levels the highest we've seen in well over a decade in the Neshaminy watershed," David Rutsay said.
Rustay, the water treatment manager at Aqua America in Bryn Mawr, says the levels are high but extremely minute in the parts per trillion -- essentially a drop of water in an Olympic swimming pool.
"It is not a health concern, it is not harmful," Rutsay said.
Aqua says it is responding and now treating the water multiple times a week.
"We have significantly increased our powder-activated carbon and that is gonna absorb the material and then drop it out of solution," Rutsay said.
"We don't like the water. We'll take a shower in it but that's about it for us. Nobody in the house drinks this water," Posey said.
Aqua says the rain Thursday night helped the flow in the Neshaminy Creek, and it's hopeful the situation will be resolved soon.
The water is safe and we're told adding ice cubes and chilling the water helps take away the earthy smell and taste.