During Autumn 1982, many consumers complained in Paris about a musty taste.
Complaints were located only in a quarter of Paris which was supplied by a
surface water treatment plant. The experiments and tests have shown that t
his taste appeared only in the network. Musty taste was detected neither on
the river nor at the outlet of the plant. Some hypotheses have been made a
nd experiments have been conducted later because this episode of complaints
stopped suddenly. It appeared that some chlorophenols were produced in the
plant. These compounds were biomethylated further by fungi in the network
leading to chloroanisole which give a musty taste detectable at very low co
ncentration. (C) 1999 IAWQ Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights re
served.