Utah water losing distinctive taste

Historically, much of Utah's water has had a bit of a kick, its own noticeable aftertaste born of high minerals, salts and other naturally occurring compounds.

"Over the decades communities (particularly on the west side) had wells with higher mineral content, and residents were fine with that type of water flavor," said Richard Bay, assistant general manager of Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District.

Deseret Morning News graphic Groundwater contamination Requires Adobe Acrobat.

Utahns are considerably more discerning these days. If they detect something off in their ice water — even if a taste is perfectly harmless, health-wise — they call their local water guys and complain.

"Now, the children growing up, they expect something more," Bay said.

The sometimes-musty flavor, courtesy of river-dwelling algae by-products, was recently removed from water supplied to Layton residents from the Weber Basin Water Conservancy District, which completed a multimillion-dollar upgrade to its treatment plant.

"Kind of mossy; kind of grassy," was the way Weber general manager Tage Flint characterized the water's pretreated flavor.

The treatment is all for perception — changing the flavor doesn't change the nutritional qualities of the water either way.

Bay's district is dealing with the flavor issue in the cleanup of two massive plumes of contaminated groundwater in southwest Salt Lake Valley, resulting from decades of Kennecott mining operations.

According to a 1990 consent decree, Kennecott is responsible for purifying the water (or paying to purify it — Jordan Valley water is doing the actual work for the eastern plume). The standard of purification is 500 parts per million of total dissolved solids (salts and minerals) in the western plume, and 800 parts per million in the eastern plume.

Those standards are quite adequate as far as health is concerned. As far as flavor, however, they're not — people who fill their glasses up at the tap start grimacing and pouring the water out at about 500 parts per million.