City testing residents' green-tinted water

Kathy Lee sat next to her bathtub inside her east Carson City home on Tuesday after filling it with water. Contrasted against the white bathtub was a faint green hue.

"I'm brushing my teeth in this stuff," Lee said. "If you don't know what it is how do you know it won't hurt me?"

City officials were testing the water lines that feed Lee's neighborhood on Darla Way on Monday after she and another homeowner noticed green-tinted water coming out of their faucets about a week ago.

Curtis Horton, the public works operations chief, said the results from those tests should be back by today.

"The bacteriological samples all came back clean," Horton said. "We're still waiting on the chemical breakdown of the water, which will tell us about chemical concentrations in the water. That should be available (Wednesday)."

The neighborhood is fed by two nearby city wells. Horton said it's not unusual for groundwater to react with copper piping, which can produce a discoloration.

Lee first noticed the green-tinted water while filling up her family's pool June 13. She called the city's emergency hot line to report it and was told the water is harmless.

After waiting all last week for a visit by city water officials to take a sample of the water, Lee decided to contact the local media.

"(Monday) was the first day (water inspectors) came out," Lee said. "I don't know what's going to happen. I'm not done, I'm not done by a long shot."

Horton said the water line that feeds the neighborhood on Darla Way is a "dead end line" and needs to be flushed every four months. Residents said the last time the city flushed the system was in mid-April.

He added the city responded quickly to Lee's inquiry.

"To the best of my knowledge we did promptly start to work on the problem," Horton said. "That's what I understand to be the case at the moment."

Starr Nixdorf, who lives in the house across the street from the Lees, said she and her husband noticed green water a week ago.

"(My husband) filled up the basin in our house, it's a sink, not even a swimming pool, and you could see the basin in the sink, the water is green," Nixdorf said. Since then, she said, green tint has subsided.

"It's nothing like it was on Saturday," she said.

About a week after filling up their 9,000 gallon above ground pool, Lee's husband, Craig, 48, dumped 10 ounces of algaecide into the pool, which he said got rid of the discoloration.

"I don't believe the algaecide would have changed the color of a mineral," Craig Lee said.

Horton said he ruled out the possibility of algae growing in the water because the chlorine levels are too high for the single-celled, green organism to survive.

"It's not algae," he said.

Five other homeowners on Darla Way interviewed for this story said they had not seen any green water come out of their faucets.

This isn't the first time a Carson City neighborhood has experienced green-tinted water.

Horton said the water on the west side of Carson City can become discolored because of surface water runoff, which would be unlikely for the Darla Way neighborhood.

"It's safe, it meets all the standards," Horton said.

"It's just visible."