COULD ALGAE CREATE TASTE AND ODOR PROBLEMS FOR PIONEER?

Questions have been raised by customers of Pioneer Rural Water about the potential for taste and odor trouble to their drinking water, once Pioneer opens its first treatment plant and starts to draw its supply straight from Lake Hartwell. These questions have arisen, according to Pioneer manager Terry Pruitt, as the result of the problems that Clemson water users encountered in recent years as customers of the Anderson Joint Regional Water System. At yesterday’s meeting of the Pioneer board, Pruitt announced that preliminary testing of the water in the vicinity of Pioneer’s Lake Hartwell intake shows that the problems caused by blue-green algae won’t affect Pioneer as it treats the water for retail sales. Nevertheless, he said, Pioneer wants to be pro-active, and that’s why representatives of a Greenville company presented an algae management plan for consideration. The presentation was accepted as information.