About 200 customers of the Saratoga Beach Water system were dry for 28 hours this week.

Beginning at 10 a.m. on Wednesday and going to 2 p.m. Thursday, a water maintenance company sent highly chlorinated water through the mains to rid the system of iron bacteria. A flyer given to all customers in the association warned that during the chlorination process, even with pressure, the water would be unusable.

“We have iron naturally occurring in well water on Whidbey Island, so this is an ongoing problem that requires our attention several times a year,” said Brenda Bosman, secretary for the Saratoga Beach Water Association.

This was a scheduled, periodic maintenance operation.

“When the iron content builds up, the smell is similar to rotten eggs. We’ve had several calls complaining about the odor,” Bosman said.

The same procedure was done about a year ago.

Iron bacteria is not harmful to humans, and according to Island County Health Department’s Vin Sherman it is more of “an aesthetic nuisance.”

Sherman described iron bacteria, as a fairly ubiquitous naturally-occurring bacteria that is harmless to humans. It thrives in water that has high iron content, and uses the iron to feed its metabolism. A byproduct of the iron bacteria’s metabolic processes is that it produces a gas, hydrogen sulfide, that is responsible for a “rotten egg” smell coming from the water.

Bosman said they are going to try a different procedure, chlorinating dirt around the well, to control the iron bacteria.

The way most small water systems in this county deal with the iron bacteria is to periodically disinfect the well and/or water system with a chlorine solution to destroy the iron bacteria. This usually gives relief for a period of time, normally a number of months, but needs to be redone when the bacteria return.

Larger water systems usually keep the problem under control by continuous chlorination of the water.