Broken Arrow: City's Treated Water Safe To Drink

The city of Broken Arrow says it will take a few days to resolve complaints of stinky water that tastes bad.

In the meantime, they say the water is safe to drink.

The musty taste and smell of Broken Arrow's water is from algae in the Verdigris River. The city said it's something that usually happens each year. 

Customers at Duffy's Restaurant noticed a weird taste in their drinks and told workers. 

Duffy's ended up giving them their drinks for free and bought bottled water to use. 

"It did have a smell but it wasn't a real big smell. You know it wasn't a bad smell. But it was the taste. It was awful. It was bad," said Crystal Gipson with Duffy’s Restaurant. 

Broken Arrow Police started getting calls from neighbors about water problems, so the city started testing it and learned it was the algae. 

"During the summer months is when we notice that algae can become a problem because of the number of nutrients in the river and the amount of sunlight and heat that is available," said Krista Flasch with the City of Broken Arrow.  

The Verdigris River is the city's main source of water.
 
The water from the river gets treated at the city's treatment plant before it goes out to homes.

Even though this didn't happen last year, Broken Arrow spokeswoman Krista Flasch said this usually happens this time of year, but she wants to make it clear, the water is safe.

"The city is increasing its pretreatment operations at the water plant and we are also flushing the affected water out of the supply system," Flasch said. 

The city said the water should be back to normal in the next couple of days.

Broken Arrow encourages its residents to use the "action center app" on the city website to report issues so they can pinpoint problems.