In-depth reporting on Nevada City's fishy water - an experiment in open source journalism

During at least the last 15 years, Nevada City has repeatedly suffered from poor drinking water quality. When our new city manager came onboard several years ago, he seemed to have gotten the problem under control somehow, but in the last year or so the water has reverted to its previous occasional foulness. The yearly water quality reports sent to all city residents typically report excellent water quality, and do not mention or explain the recurrent problem.*

So far, efforts to obtain a satisfactory explanation have not yielded satisfactory results. (partly due to my not following through, partly due to general busy-ness of city staff, partly due to the general entropy of communications...the point isn't to assign blame, it's to get answers.)


Hence - and in a general spirit of inquiry - I offer an open source journalism experiment and invite your participation:

Below I've laid out what I think I know and what I'd like to know. Do you have further questions? Perhaps a local weblog or newspaper or other news outlet could help to flesh out this information?

If you have questions or investigative/reporting skills to contribute, please, get to work...

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Occasionally, Nevada City's drinking water develops a problem - a "fishy" smell, an odd/bitter taste, discoloration, and (it seems to me) a strange "greasy" texture.

The problem is worst in the neighborhood around Pioneer Park (served by the water tank nearest the drinking water treatment plant?), and typically worst after a dry spell following the first rains, e.g. around Thanksgiving.

The contamination is said
(by whom? )
(and with what level of confidence? from 0% to 100%)

to be due to "cold water algae", that grow primarily in
our reservoir? the water tanks? Little Deer Creek? somewhere else enroute?
(what is the name of our reservoir?)

Has the alga responsible been identified?
(if so, when and by whom, and what's the species?)

if not -

• What attempts have been made, when and by whom?
  
• What would it cost, roughly, to get an identification?
  
• if cost unknown, how could we get a rough estimate of the cost?
  

Other questions:

• Are growths of the algae more visible, at the times when the water has this problem?
  
• On the phone, I've been told that the water treatment process gets rid of the odor by "oxidizing the compound" that causes it.
  By what means is this done?
  
• Is the problem addressed in other ways as well?
  
• if not, are there other ways that it could it be addressed? (eg. by increasing the reservoir inflow/outflow?)
  
• Is there any documentation on the web that you'd recommend, that covers the "cold water alga" issue?
  
• Have other communities encountered the problem, and if so, have they solved it or does it periodically come back to haunt them too?
  
• Would it be possible for a citizen journalist or paid reporter (and perhaps Alan Stahler,* if he's in town) to be shown the reservoir, (drinking) water treatment plant, etc?
  
• Where is the water intake location in the reservoir - does it vary, in distance from top, in different seasons?
  
• Has the raw water (when foul) been measured for microcystins?
  
• What other questions should we be asking, if we want to acquire a full understanding of the problem?
  
  

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If you can help to get answers, we who drink and bathe in the problem will thank you.