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Kansas City water expected to be odorless and back to normal by Wednesday, officials say

Jarrek Lucke stands with a gleeful look in front of the main chemical and administration building
Brandon Azim
/
KCUR
Jarreck Lucke, utility manager over operations for KC Water, in front of the plant's main chemical and administration building north of the river.

Officials with KC Water say heavy rainfall around Omaha, Nebraska, is the reason people in the Kansas City area have noticed a strange taste and odor to their water in the last couple of days. The water is safe to drink, officials insist, and the treated water is slowly moving south, so everyone's water should taste the way it always has by Wednesday.

Saturday morning, Sarah J. Nettle of Kansas City, Missouri, started her morning like any other day by making a cup of coffee using water from her kitchen sink. As she took a sip from her warm cup, she noticed something odd about the taste.

“It tasted extra chemically with extra minerals,” said Nettle. “It doesn’t taste bad, it just had a different taste.”

Nettle wondered if it was a problem with her personal plumbing. But when she opened the neighborhood app Next Door, she saw she wasn't the only one commenting that there was something "off" about the water.

“I posted 'did anyone else notice their water tasting weird?' and like three minutes later someone else posted the same question," Nettle said.

Within the next couple of hours, KC Water posted about the problem on social media. They said heavy rainfall north of the Kansas City Area caused runoff from the Missouri River, Kansas City’s source for drinking water. Last Wednesday, June 25, torrential rains gushed into the Platte and Grand Rivers, rapidly making their way down to the Kansas City area via the Missouri River. With that water came ammonia and other chemicals embedded in topsoil, particularly from farmland.

“We have 800,000 customers that we reach for the metro area," said KC Water Utility Operations Manager Jarreck Lucke. "Since the weekend transpired, I think we have 165 complaints that have come through thus far."

Lucke emphasized the water is safe for drinking and bathing. He said the utility is working steadily to return water to normal for consumers. The scientists are working out the chemical combinations to mitigate the impact of additives from the runoff.

“So right now, for taste and odor, we have permanganate (a water-treatment, oxidizing agent). We can add polymer, which is a large coagulant. We can also add ferric chloride, which, in essence, is (also) an oxidizer.”

But overlooking the water in a section of the treatment facility, what's most visible is a black stream billowing from the wall into the water. It's powder activated carbon, said Lucke.

“The powder activated carbon is a very good absorbent for a multitude of issues that can come into any treatment facility,” said Lucke. “And so it's a really good catchall to support anything that comes down the river and anything in the future that might hit this facility.”

Powder-activated carbon disperses within water located inside the treatment plant
Brandon Azim
/
KCUR
Powder activated carbon is one of the oxidizing agents that purifies the water.

While unpleasant changes in the drinking water are not uncommon during flood season, Lucke said KC Water will be taking additional steps to prevent the tainted water from coming through again.

“So in the City of Leavenworth, we are in conversations with them about a response," Lucke said. "Let's say, if they see something before us, because it might take an additional day before it comes to us. So we're trying to have a reach-out program between us, them, and the D.N.R (Department of Natural Resources)."

An overlook of the water treatment plant
Brandon Azim
/
KCUR
An overlook at the Kansas City, Missouri, water treatment plant.

Sarah J. Nettle, meanwhile, has faith in the city's water treatment program and is looking forward to a good cup of coffee, at least by Wednesday.

“I appreciate them putting an explanation out there and I think, you know, if they've got extra stuff in it to keep drinking water safe, that's fine by me. I understand that.”

I was raised on the East Side of Kansas City and feel a strong affinity to communities there. As KCUR's Solutions reporter, I'll be spending time in underserved communities across the metro, exploring how they are responding to their challenges. I will look for evidence to explain why certain responses succeed while others fail, and what we can learn from those outcomes. This might mean sharing successes here or looking into how problems like those in our communities have been successfully addressed elsewhere. Having spent a majority of my life in Kansas City, I want to provide the people I've called friends and family with possible answers to their questions and speak up for those who are not in a position to speak for themselves.
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