Taste and odour research: a utility's perspective.

Tastes and odours issues constitute not only a rich field for research, but also a major challenge for water utilities. Addressing such problems requires sustained research programmes and the development of long-term proactive control measures; individual water utilities have found this hard to achieve, but collaborative approaches are proving successful. This is highlighted by taste and odours incidents in the 1990s in the Lake Ontario region that led to the formation of the Ontario Water Works Research Consortium. This collaboration of utilities with scientists and technical expertise in universities and government has enabled the linking of resources to a far more extensive programme than individual utilities could conduct, avoiding duplication of work, and providing a central mechanism for effective public outreach.