If you live in downtown or south Austin and your water smells funny, Zebra mussels are the reason why, according to an Austin Water release.
Thursday afternoon, Austin Water responded to complaints from several residents reporting water containing an unusual odor. According to the release, routine test results indicate that the odor issues were likely caused by the presence of Zebra mussels in a raw water pipeline at the Ullrich Water Treatment Plant.
Austin Water assured customers that the water is safe to drink and there is no boil water notice.
While officials can’t pinpoint the exact affected areas, Guerrero says they have received many calls from south Austin. In a statement from the company Thursday morning, officials wrote that the water “is meeting all regulatory standards and is safe to drink.”
Crews have started feeding powdered, activated carbon into the water which is often used to help with taste and smell issues. Additionally, water lines in the area are being flushed. Austin Water hopes the problem will be resolved in 24 hours.
This isn’t easing the fears of some Austinites who say they have doubts about the water utility following the city’s week-long boil water notice in October.
Residents tell KXAN that their water in downtown Austin “smells like septic or toilet water.”
“The water smells like rotten trash when I attempted to shower and brush my teeth,” another downtown resident told KXAN.
KXAN tests the water
We fielded several messages Thursday morning from people who live in south and central Austin. Although the city didn’t issue a boil water notice and told the public the water was safe to drink, we decided to take a sample for testing.
We collected a sample from a homeowner on Arthur Lane. We collected a residential water supply testing kit from the Lower Colorado River Authority’s Environmental Laboratory Services division on Montopolis Drive. The testing we had the lab perform included every test parameter LCRA is certified to perform.
The kit includes detailed instructions on how to collect the water samples, which includes guidelines on how to prevent contamination of the results. We returned the kit to LCRA’s lab within 30 minutes of collecting the samples.
The lab accepted the samples and said the results could take between seven and ten days. We’ll update our reporting on the samples as soon as the results are turned over to us.
