Hanover Water Works Company mistakenly overinjected baking soda -- five extra milligrams per liter -- into the town's water supply a week and a half ago, causing student and town residents to complain of an unpleasant taste. The problem occurred because of a design flaw in the chemical feed pumps and the overload has since been alleviated, according to Peter Kulbacki, director of the Hanover Public Works Department and general manager of the Hanover Water Works Company.
Baking soda would give the water a metallic taste, but trace amounts of the chemical should not have resulted in highly discernible changes in taste and smell, Kulbacki said.
Anne Megargel '09, however, said the smell and taste of the tap water has been noticeably different over the past few weeks.
"Hanover tap water -- it's just been bad. It definitely smells and tastes kind of funny, and I've heard alternative people describe it as 'dead fish,'" Megargel said. "I hope something changes soon, because I really don't like buying bottled water."
The extra baking soda is not a health concern and is still well under the harmful limit, according to Kulbacki. Baking soda has been injected into the town's water supply since October 2006 in order to control corrosion, he said. He did not determine the level of baking soda usually injected into the water supply.
"Baking soda raises the pH of the water, making the water less corrosive so you don't have this extra lead and copper coming from the pipes and buildings," Kulbacki said. "If we put in too much, it won't hurt you, but we're walking a fine line between making it taste good and making the water not so corrosive."
The strange taste should "subside substantially" after Hanover Water Works completes its biannual 10-day flushing process, which began Monday, Kulbacki said. The process itself, however, causes poor water quality in the short term, he said.
"We isolate a part of the system, run a lot of water through it and dislodge the sediments in the joints and elbows out the fire hydrants," said Michael Blayney, vice president of Hanover Water Works and director of environmental health and safety at the College. "The challenge in the Hanover system is the old pipes -- we aggressively flush the pipes in the spring and the fall, which sometimes leads to discoloration that people notice and report."
Flushing occasionally moves old deposits in the pipes, which causes rustier water, Kulbacki said. Despite the bad taste, the water deposits are harmless and have been treated by disinfectants for years, he added.
"It's disinfected material, and it's more of a taste issue than anything else," he said. "The iron is an aesthetic issue. That was really the issue we've had during the flushing process."
Water quality in Hanover has improved dramatically over the last year and a half due to the addition of a membrane filtration plan that removes metals like manganese from the water, Blayney said. The membrane filtration system has also reduced the amount of sediment in the water, which plagued the town's tap water supply for 100 years, according to Kulbacki.
"Before we had filtration, we had a turnover process where we'd get a cool day, and the top layer of water sinks to the bottom, bringing sediment off the bottom to the top," Kulbacki said. "We saw a lot of color and poor taste during these periods, but we've elim inated that with the filtration system and the process doesn't affect us anymore."
