It might smell a little weird, but it’s still safe.

That’s the message the city is sending out to some East York and downtown residents who have complained that their water has been tasting and smelling a little strange over the last day or so.

“Anyone else in #eastyork got funny-tasting water?,” Cabbagetown resident Matthew Browning tweeted at 311 Thursday night.

A number of other people quickly chimed in to say that their water was also tasting strange.

However the city told CP24 Friday morning that there is no health issue with the water and that it is safe to drink.

“At no time was the water quality impacted or impaired,” Lou Di Gironimo, general manager of Toronto Water told reporters at a news conferenceFriday morning.

Di Gironimo said city staff received around 65 complaints about the water taste and smell, but it took some time to figure out the source of the problem because there were varying descriptions of the problem.

He said the problem was twofold; people were complaining about a chlorine taste as well as a sulphur-like odour and taste.

In terms of the chlorine, Di Gironimo said the city has been gradually boosting chlorine levels in the water in the affected area because the levels were lower than they should be.

“We were sensitive to the fact that some people might notice an increase, so that’s why we were raising levels very, very gradually over the last two or three weeks,” Di Gironimo said.

However city staff have now reduced the chlorine levels in response to the complaint, he added.

Staff eventually traced the source of the second problem to the R.C. Harris Treatment Plant, where a settling basin was put back into use yesterday as the city replaces infrastructure from the 1940s.

“We have some system upgrades that are taking place at that treatment plant and a basin went back online yesterday,” Di Gironimo said. “We suspect that the cause of the sulphur complaints was a result of putting that basin back into service.”

He explained that aluminum sulphate used in the treatment process generated a hydrogen sulphide gas that gives off an odour similar to boiled eggs.  Staff suspect that some of that gas made its way into treated water when the basin was brought back online.

While the chlorine and the gas may have produced an unpleasant taste and smell in the water, Di Gironimo said Toronto Water constantly monitors the water supply and at no time were any unsafe levels of chemicals or gases detected.

“If at any point we felt there was a threat to the drinking water system, we would have notified the medical officer of health,” he said.

He said he’s not sure why some people reported being told by 311 that they shouldn’t drink the water, as Toronto Water coordinated with 311 to put out the message that the water is safe.

The settling basin in question has now been taken back out of operation and the water taste is expected to return to normal within a day, Toronto Water said.

Di Gironimo said the city is looking at how they can avoid the unpleasant taste going forward as they remove three or four more basins.