At 5:15 p.m. on Oct. 1, 1981, Mrs. R.F. Morton queued up behind 60 to 75 people waiting to fill up several one-gallon containers with water from the Byrd Park spring.
Tap water pouring into people's homes had in the preceding days developed an offensive taste and odor, and residents began seeking relief wherever they could find it.
"I'll stand in line as long as I have to -- the city water tastes terrible," Morton said. "It tastes earthy, like dirt."
At the end of September, the James River had been taken over by an algae bloom, which noticeably changed its color to a greenish-blue hue and gave its water a foul taste and odor. The algae had grown rapidly, spreading from Lynchburg, where the bloom had started, all the way to Richmond, over 100 miles away.
When the algae first appeared in Richmond's stretch of the James, the city closed the intake gates of the water purification plant temporarily to determine whether the algae posed any threat. Officials soon determined that the water likely posed no threat to anyone's health -- it was just unpleasant to drink.
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"Don't despair, said state and city officials yesterday," reads an article in the Oct. 1, 1981, Times-Dispatch. "There has been a change in the quality of city water, but it is not permanent, and all will be well again when the river rises."
An algae bloom can result when there's a lower flow of water in the river, coupled with warm, sunny weather. At the time the algae appeared, the river had been measured at half its normal 6-foot depth, and had decreased to a flow of 800 cubic feet a second, down from its average of 7,600 cubic feet per second.
The smell is caused by dying algae cells breaking open and releasing carbon compounds into the water.
While the city reassured residents that this condition wasn't permanent, there wasn't a lot that could be done about it in the short term, and everyone would most likely just have to wait for a drop in temperature or rain showers to clear up the algae. In the meantime, they'd have to monitor to see if fish or other animals in the river suffered any ill health effects.
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With the tap water unpalatable for the foreseeable future, bottled water began selling with greater frequency at local groceries like Safeway. Bill Minton, manager at the A&P Food Store at 1527 Parham Road, said that his store sold out of bottled water by 9 p.m. on Sept. 30.
As the problem continued into the third day, it became increasingly clear that the algae bloom would be a lingering problem.
"Realistically, I don't think that this is a short-term thing that will clear up soon," said Tom Felvey, director of ecological studies at the State Water Control Board.
The news only got worse from there; on Oct. 6, the Department of Public Utilities said the problem could last well into December. It also reiterated that, despite the taste and smell, people would simply have to tolerate it. The blue-green algae's genus was identified as the cause, and it posed no harm to the public.
The city made an effort to minimize the water's offensive taste by filtering it through three extra orders of 20 tons each of activated charcoal, at a cost of $12,000 per order. Still, that much carbon wasn't enough to fully do away with the unpleasant odor and taste.
By Oct. 8, the state water board finally arrived upon an alternate solution to potentially curtail the effects of the bloom, by attempting to release an additional 130 gallons of water into the river from Lake Moomaw at Gathright Dam in far western Virginia. The process was intended to help wash out the algae and, if successful, would probably take about two weeks.
The Army Corps of Engineers put the plan into effect, increasing the flow of water in the James, though the water board reemphasized that residents would not see the effect immediately. Within three days, however, the James began to show improvement in the concentration of algae in the water, and the department of utilities suggested that the water would smell and taste better within a week.
By Oct. 20, the city declared the worst of the river's problems just about over. "I can't say it's 100 percent" for all residents, said Glen Delano, chief of plants in the city's Department of Utilities, but "in the main arteries, it's all good."
As the algae invasion wound to a close, local Karen Lynch designed T-shirts to commemorate the contamination, reading "What's the Big Stink? James River 1981."
Quoted in the Oct. 20, 1981 edition of the Times-Dispatch, Lynch said, "It's not Mount St. Helens, but it is our own little disaster."
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