After a summer of foul-smelling water, frustration and packed city council meetings, state agencies and nonprofits are turning their attention to Mabton’s water problems.
Dozens of residents attended a city council meeting and a separate listening session last week, demanding solutions. Officials noted the ongoing issue and shared their efforts to solve the problem. Organizers with nonprofit Empowering Latina Leadership and Action (ELLA) and the Mabton Food Bank are bringing in free water for residents.
State and local engineers said they are conducting further tests to determine the exact cause of the water’s bad smell but hope that a new well will help. The city could then move away from a well supplying the worst-smelling water.
Officials at the state Department of Health and Valley Water Services, the private contractor that oversees Mabton’s drinking water, said the water meets state safety regulations, but acknowledged the unpleasant conditions residents face in the city of roughly 1,000.
“We understand tap water shouldn’t taste and smell bad,” said Barbara Morrissey, a DOH toxicologist, said in an interview. “When we say water isn’t hazardous, we don’t mean it’s acceptable.”
Searching for a cause
Mabton residents have said the foul-smelling water has been around for years but has been worse this summer.
“All in my house were sick from diarrhea and stomach aches,” Norma Tinajero said through a translator at the Sept. 14 listening session. “We, the residents of Mabton, want clean water.”
Bennett Osborne owns Valley Water Services. The city contracts with Osborne’s company to meet state water safety standards.
“As far as we know, we’re (testing) everything we can possibly test,” he said in an interview. “We’ve tested for everything that is known, that is regulated, all that. They came up negative.”
That’s part of the challenge in this situation, Osborne added. Without being sure about the problem, it’s hard to be sure about the solution. Osborne said officials do not want to recklessly throw money at the problem.
“I’ve never seen this,” he said.
Andres Cervantes, the DOH’s regional engineer for the Yakima area, confirmed that water testing was being conducted and the city complies with state regulations.
While Valley Water Services continues to test the water, Cervantes and Osborne both identified a possible cause. Hydrogen sulfide gas can give water a foul smell, they said, and can come from iron bacteria that may grow in wells.
At the listening session on Sept. 14, Cervantes noted that the issue could simply be naturally occurring chemicals deep underground, in the aquifer Mabton draws water from.
Osborne said Valley Water Services is looking for signs of hydrogen sulfide or iron bacteria and aeromonas, two organisms that breathe out hydrogen sulfide. They can be dormant at times and are not evenly distributed throughout the water supply, making them difficult to find.
Cervantes and Osborne emphasized that neither are health concerns. Some bacteria are harmless – roughly 1-3% of an adult’s bodyweight are symbiotic bacteria, according to the National Institute of Health. Mabton’s water does not have any harmful bacteria, Osborne said.
“From my experience working with iron bacteria, they are not something we test for, they are not a health threat,” Cervantes said.
Addressing health concerns
Morrissey emphasized that neither iron bacteria nor hydrogen sulfide are toxic. Humans can smell hydrogen sulfide far before it becomes dangerous, she said. To be toxic and harm cells, hydrogen sulfide would have to be 30-1,000 times stronger than it is when it can be smelled.
Still, she said, the water’s smell is a problem. “Tap water shouldn’t smell or taste bad,” she said.
Morrissey said people can react to bad smells by tearing up or feeling nauseous. Foul-smelling water can be stressful for residents dealing with the issue.
“It’s not unusual for people to react to that kind of smell with those kinds of symptoms,” she said. “It definitely has an impact on people’s well-being.”
Taking steps toward solutions
While officials haven’t pinned down the cause, they do know where water smells the worst: Well 5.Normally, Mabton uses a process called aeration to treat the smell. Gas is splashed out of the water and giant fans blow it out of the reservoir. During periods of high-water usage, though, aeration doesn’t do enough.
“Whenever we have to use Well 5, which is our most productive well, and it’s going at its full capacity, treatment can’t keep up,” Osborne said.
“Basically, December through April, we run off Well 4 and 6,” he added.
One long-term solution is to drill more wells. The city is doing exactly that, Osborne said at the Sept. 12 city council meeting. Well 7 is roughly 400 feet deep and is being tested right now. That well draws from a different aquifer and could be online in October, he said.
“It’s much shallower than the other wells, which is a good thing because it’s in a different aquifer,” Osborne said. “It might as well be a mile away.”
Cervantes said he has inspected the test site. Officials won’t know about the well’s capacity or safety compliance until testing is completed, Osborne said, but Well 7 could allow Mabton to decrease its use of Well 5.
“What people have done in the past when they’ve had that problem is just abandon the well. That’s what we’re looking at doing,” he said.
Valley Water Services plans to clean Well 5 when Well 7 comes online. Cervantes said that involves removing parts of the well from underground and cleaning them chemically or physically.
The need for water now
State and federal agencies attended a Sept. 14 listening session organized by ELLA, a Sunnyside-based nonprofit.
Maria Fernandez, ELLA’s executive director, said she received calls from Mabton residents and brought the issue of environmental justice to the state Departments of Health and Ecology, the Yakima Health District, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Human Rights Commission and the state’s Environmental Justice Council.
“It’s not a coincidence that these issues are affecting communities of color,” she said.
Cervantes was present at the listening session. He said DOH is working with city officials on solutions. The Department of Ecology announced it would seek funding to help with testing Mabton’s water. Other officials said they would look for funding sources, though they acknowledge those were not immediate solutions.
ELLA and the Mabton Food Bank will both provide water free water on Monday. Many Mabton residents buy bottled water by the gallon to use for drinking and cooking. Some use it for washing dishes.
Residents have been calling for relief all summer and raised concerns about their utility bills given the water quality.
“I know it takes time, but what I’m saying is that we should have a break. We’re paying for something we don’t use,” said Mabton resident Simon Chavez at the city council meeting. “We want to see a result.”
Author: Jasper Kenzo Sundeen’s reporting for the Yakima Herald-Republic is possible with support from Report for America and community members through the Yakima Valley Community Fund. For information on republishing, email
news@yakimaherald.com.
Posted October 09, 2023
