Ooh-ooh, that smelly (but safe) Cobb water

Hotter temps, scant rain give CCMWA clients a whiff.

As one of the South’s greatest bands uttered in its 1977 classic: “Can’t you smell that smell?”

Half of the 900,000 customers of Cobb County Marietta Water Author- ity have been at risk of stinky-but-safe water the past week-and-a-half.

“Some people say earthy, some people musty, some people say moldy,” said Glenn Page, general manager of the CCMWA, on Friday.

This affects customers who get water via a station that pulls from Allatoona Lake, mostly those in the west side of the county, he said.

When asked about the affected area, he said: “400,000 to 500,000 people could have been receiving that water, and that includes businesses.”

The smell is caused by high temperatures in the water, Page said, due to a lack of recent rain and the lowering of the water level ahead of expected winter rains. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers lowered the lake 17 feet after Labor Day to avoid flooding, which is a big reason the lake exists.

Higher water temperatures mean stuff breaks down (or decomposes) more easily. The compounds are coming off of microorganisms.

The organic compounds causing the smell, if you care, are geosmin and 2-methylisoborneol. They, if you really care, are what gives vegetables and catfish their musty, murky tastes.

Page said people start to smell them at six nanograms per liter, and the levels now are between 10 and 15 nanograms per liter.

To curb the smell, he said, three days ago they started to pump more water from the station that pulls from the Chattahoochee River.

WSB Radio (News 95.5 and AM750) spoke to Kathy Nguyen, a project manager with Cobb’s water department, about the smell.

Nguyen said that, of their 700,000 customers, about 40 percent get water from Allatoona Lake. She said that number had been reduced to 23 percent.

The CCMWA workers also have been putting more water through their activated carbon system. Those are like the filtration systems in fancy refrigerators, except Page said he has 28 of them and they’re 40 feet tall.

“It’s a lot more expensive to treat, but we’re doing all we can with the technology available,” he said, adding that a price was hard to determine.

The Cobb water department, said county spokesman Ross Cavitt, has received dozens of complaints about the smells.

As for when it’ll end, Page said rain from Hurricane Florence would help, as would an end to the 90-degree days. But there’s not much else people can do.

So until then, hold your nose.