DRINKING WATER AT LAKE MARTIN March 2025

BY:  Harry DeNegre, President
Photo by:  Lake Magazine

(This article was published in the March 2025 issue of Lake Magazine)

Over the last several months, Lake Martin Homeowners and Boatowners (HOBOs) have received multiple complaints from our members concerning the quality of our drinking water.  The complaints concern the quality of our drinking water in both taste and smell.  As President of the Lake Martin Homeowners and Boatowners organization, I have spent some time attempting to get this issue addressed by our local officials without much action.  I have asked the Dadeville and Alexander city officials to address this issue without much of a response.  Certainly not a call to action to fix this important issue.

I have lived in the area part time since 1990.  I do not recall our drinking water having any issues of taste or smell until about three or four years ago.  Periodically, we would have an issue with our water not tasting or smelling correctly.  In the past, I have heard stories that it was caused by algae blooming.  That this issue would only be temporary.  In a short time, the issue went away.

In 2015, we moved to the lake permanently.  Since that time, we have had several times that our water does not taste or smell properly.  This current time has lasted 4 or 5 months.  The water has become unfit to drink.  Personally, I have gone to local restaurants and been unable to drink the tea they made using tap water.  I have had to request a bottled water or soda to drink with my meal.

We have heard several reasons for this current issue with our water.  We are not sure what the issue or issues are, but something has changed with our water.  Either our water authorities are doing something new with our water or have discontinued something they use to perform.  We will leave it to our local authorities to figure this out.  We are just asking them to fix it.

If the word spreads the Lake Martin community has bad drinking water, the entire area will suffer.  Property Values will suffer, and visitors will stop coming to our treasured Lake.  Businesses will suffer loss of revenue.  All of this is unnecessary if local officials act.

We know this issue can be fixed with additional filtration of our water.  We have taken this action at home by using a Brita filter.  The taste and smell of our tap water is fixed.  The filter takes whatever is causing the bad taste and smell out of our water.

We are not experts on water treatment.  We do not know if this fix is practical on a commercial basis but know this works at our home.  We will leave this to our local water experts to resolve.  We would appreciate some attention to being devoted to this issue and action taken to fix this issue.

We would like to hear from our local authorities.  We would like to have the local authorities develop a plan of action to resolve this issue.

We will be happy to meet with and work with any local officials to discuss this issue.  We want to resolve this issue and get it behind the community.

Harry DeNegre 
President,  Lake Martin HOBOs.