Study of the Origin of Musty Taste in the Drinking Water Supply

During Autumn 1982, many consumers complained in Paris about a musty taste. Complaints were located only in a quarter of Paris which was supplied by a surface water treatment plant. The experiments and tests have shown that this taste appeared only in the network. Musty taste was detected neither on the river nor at the outlet of the plant. Some hypotheses have been made and experiments have been conducted later because this episode of complaints stopped suddenly. It appeared that some chlorophenols were produced in the plant. These compounds were biomethylated further by fungi in the network leading to chloroanisole which give a musty taste detectable a very low concentration.