HOUSTON – Some Houston residents are complaining that their drinking water has an odd odor.
Daelynn Newlin said the smell of her tap water has been off-putting for the past two weeks.
“When I first turn it on you get the strong whiff of either bleach or like what I describe as fish tank water,” Newlin said.
Newlin, who lives in Montrose, said the odor coming out of her shower, kitchen sink and bathroom sink have been hard to stomach. She’s cooking with bottled water and is only using the tap to shower and wash her hands.
“When I told my husband ‘it’s really smelling strong,’ he said, ‘well let it run for a few minutes and see if that helps’ and it did,” she said. So that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing.”
The strange odor is a similar observation some Houstonians have recently shared in an online forum. Residents in River Oaks, the Galleria area, Tanglewood and in Meyerland said the city’s water smells fishy to them.
A spokeswoman for the City of Houston’s Public Works Department tells KPRC2 they are aware that some customers are experiencing water with a fishy or musty odor. The city said those neighborhoods fall within one concentrated area of the 6,000 miles of pipes they run for drinking water alone.
“Samples collected by Houston Water indicate disinfectant residuals are within range,” the spokeswoman, Erin Jones, said in a statement. “Houston’s drinking water still meets or exceeds all federal and state standards and is safe.”
As for what may be causing the smell, Jones suspects a new fire hydrant and construction projects.
The City of Houston suggests residents who notice an odor in their water to start with running their cold water for 10 minutes, throwing out three containers of ice from your ice maker, running your water softeners through a regeneration cycle, and chilling water and adding lemons before drinking to get rid of a musty taste. They also suggest people report the issue to 3-1-1 so crews know where to test.