Have you noticed any changes in your drinking water? If so, you are not alone. But, the problem does not carry any health danger.

Some residents with Bluffton water have noticed a musty smell and mineral taste. The Village of Ottawa, the Bluffton water supplier, notified the village that is it aware of the problem.

A June 25 letter to the Bluffton village office from Douglas Schroeder, director of Ottawa water treatment addresses the problems. His letter follows:

Re: Taste and odor issues

The Village of Ottawa along with Glandorf and Bluffton have received calls from residents on complaints of a mineral tasting water with a musty smell.

We have been reviewing and examining our facility with the EPA’s assistance to find out the root cause of this event with no conclusive determination as of yet. To dispel any misinformation circulating in the public the Village of Ottawa wishes to let you know what we know at this time.

In our treatment process we constantly monitor the reservoir and we did not have any algae blooms are any major fluctuations in plant operations to definitively cause this issue.

We monitor the reservoir in several ways such as by visual on site, in-house Fluor meter testing and contracted lab testing. The fluorometer measures chlorophyll fluorescence, which shows the presence of plant growth and Phycocyanin, which shows the presence of blue green algae and our results shows below detection throughout this time period which was also viewed under a microscope on site by the EPA.

The Village of Ottawa has stayed in contact with the operators of all the effected communities to effectively flush this water out of the distribution system by areas where the complaints were received and also flushing the dead ends in the system.

The Village of Ottawa along with the assistance of the EPA are closely examining every aspect of this event and will continue monitoring plant operations. The water is safe to use and drink, but for the past few weeks has been esthetically not pleasing.

This type of event is not unique, but problematic in Ohio and we are searching out the direct cause and taking the appropriate action to correctly prevent this issue from reoccurring.

We have noticed that residents with refrigerators with onboard water systems that use a special inline filtration can reduce these taste and odors with proper filter maintenance in accordance with the manufacturers recommendations.

We do apologize for this inconvenience and wish to work through this together with you as are communities continue to grow and prosper.