AWWA WQTC52853

Algae blooms in the Upper San Leandro Reservoir have led to taste and odorproblems at East Bay Municipal Utility District's Upper San Leandro Water Treatment Plant. Several upgrades, including installation of granular activated carbon filter media and intermediate ozone were insufficient to cope with the geosmin levels in the raw water supply. In late 1997, staff began experimenting with an electronic odor identification system. This device uses a 32-dimensional polymerized sensor coupled to an artificial neural network (ANN) running on a personal computer that, once trained, can discriminate between different levels of odor intensity, but cannot directly measure concentration. This paper describes the device and presents the results of testing and network training efforts. Includes table, figures.