Some city of Rome customers might be noticing a slight tang to their drinking water, but upstream in Calhoun it’s worse.

“It’s got a vile odor,” said Leon Colson, a Class 1 operator at the Calhoun Water Treatment Plant. “But the water is safe for drinking, as long as you can stand the smell of it.”

The problem is an algae bloom in Carters Lake, which started about a week ago. The lake feeds the Coosawattee River where the city of Calhoun has its intake. By the time the water reaches Rome’s intake at Ridge Ferry Park, it has combined with the Conasauga River to form the Oostanaula.

“That dilutes it some,” said Leigh Ross, director of the Rome Water and Sewer Department. “We’re also pulling as much as we can from the Etowah River to blend with it.”

Ross said the city is adding an oxidizing agent at the raw water intake to help destroy more of the taste and odor. Rome and Calhoun have also increased the use of activated carbon at their treatment plants to further neutralize the smell.

The same thing happened a few years ago and will likely happen again in the future, Ross and Colson said. And both pointed to the city of Chatsworth, which draws directly from the lake, as getting the worst of it.

“Every so often, Carters Lake experiences an algae bloom,” Ross said. “Some of our customers can taste and smell it, although I can’t. But there’s no health effect from it. Not even minor.”

The bloom is probably the result of the recent hot and cold temperatures, stirring up the algae on the bottom of the lake, Colson said.

An aggravating factor, according to Ross, could be the animal waste runoff from nearby chicken and pig farms.

Aside from the carbon and chlorine treatments, there is nothing else the water departments can do except “let nature take its course,” Colson said.

“The algae from Carter’s Lake is just going to have to wash on down past our intake before we get rid of the smell,” Ross said. “That will probably take a couple of good rains.”

Until then, the men suggested chilling the water before drinking it or using a water-faucet purifier with a carbon filter to boost the treatments conducted at the plants.