Clear Lake, a water source for Lake County, CA, is a nutrient rich body of water that is plagued by algae blooms that create serious taste and odor problems with the water. This is a situation that affects many communities drawing water from reservoirs and lakes with algae.
Some water companies treating water from this area are more successful than others in making the water palatable. The Highland Water company draws water with high turbidity from the lake and treats it with a multi step process. At the end, the turbidity is well below the state requirements for drinking water.
Ken Price, a resident said that, “Highlands Water Co. is where we get our water from and I find it drinkable.”
There are several steps employed by Highland in treating the water. It is treated with ozone and then passed through a clarifier followed by carbon filters. Ozone is often used for taste and odor control applications, especially where the cause is algae blooms.
Some of the largest applications in the US for ozone are for taste and odor control in drinking water. The drinking water plants in the Dallas/Fort Worth area of Texas are very large users of ozone for this application. These plants get their water from a reservoir system that is subject to algae problems in the summer. Ozone has effectively solved the taste and odor problems here as well.