How scientists are using their senses to test the Delaware Valley's water quality
Despite the laboratory's floor-to-ceiling windows revealing a cloudy morning outside, Kandé Duncan's smile brightens up the room as she welcomes her co-workers.
Duncan needs their opinions on the taste and smell of several drinks she poured into cups that are lined up along a long table.
"I enjoy people's reactions," Duncan said. "I love when we get something unexpected."
Over the next hour, she and her co-workers sniff and slurp several samples while discussing what smells and flavors they can detect.
"Ugh!" Duncan exclaimed. "I do smell this one!"
"It burns my nose," Joey Forish, her co-worker, said.
"It's like a wine tasting!" another co-worker suggested.
Except they're not judging wine; They're tasting and smelling water samples.
All three co-workers are employees at Aqua, a water utility based in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.
"The last thing you want to hear is that, 'Oh my gosh! I'm opening my tap, and this is not smelling right or tasting right,'" said Duncan, who's an Aqua chemist. "We do take your complaints seriously."
Despite the fun they have, it's serious work.
The bi-weekly taste and smell tests help them detect compounds found in Harmful Algal Blooms, or HABs.
Climate change is causing more HABs to grow in areas where utilities get drinking water for customers.
HABs can make people sick and make drinking water taste and smell nasty.
Forish, an Aqua chemist, said taste and smell tests allow him to think less like a scientist and more like a consumer.
"Being able to remove ourselves and ensure that our customers are getting the water that we enjoy, we know that they're going to enjoy as well," Forish said.
Duncan added, "If we're not afraid to taste and smell it, you shouldn't be. It's of a high standard."
