City reassures residents drinking water is safe after odour complaints

By News Staff

Toronto Water says the quality of the city’s drinking water remains safe despite an off odour noticed by some residents.

Toronto Water General Manager Lou Di Gironimo said they received 65 complaints about the taste and smell of the water over the course of 12 hours. The complaints about the taste and odour of tap water in East York and areas of downtown Toronto.

“Odour complaints and taste complaints revolved around two issues,” said Di Gironimo. “Some people were complaining about the taste of chlorine while some others were commenting they smelled some sulfur compound or some chemical type compound.”

He says system upgrades at the R.C. Harris Treatment Plant located at the foot of Queen Street East and Victoria Park were the cause of the problem. A settling basin that was put back into operation on Thursday is the source of the foul-smelling water.

“We suspect that the cause of the sulfur complaints was as a result of putting that basin back into service,” said Di Gironimo. “As part of our normal treatment process we use aluminum sulfate – otherwise known as alum – and that has sulfur in it. As we put the basin back online, there was some hydrogen sulphide gas that was still within the piping and basin of that facility and that gas got mixed into the drinking water.”

Di Gironimo says the settling basin has been taken out of operation and that the taste and odour of the water should return to normal by the end of the day.

“At no time was Toronto’s water quality impacted,” he said. “The water remains safe to drink and meets all regulatory requirements.”

Di Gironimo also noted that over the last two weeks, Toronto Water has been gradually raising the levels of chlorine in the system to maintain regulatory requirements, particularly in the norther parts of the distribution system.

“Some people are more susceptible to the smell and taste of chlorine and some complaints may have been related to that issue.”

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