Salty Drinks

In January, 1981, a nationally known fast food restaurant located in southeastern United States, complained to the water department that all their soft drinks were being rejected by their customers as tasting “salty.” this included soda fountain beverages, coffee, orange juice, etc. An investigation revealed that an adjacent water customer complained of salty water occurring simultaneously with the restaurant incident. This second complaint came from a water front ship repair facility that was also being served by the same water main lateral. The (investigation centered on the ship repair facility and revealed the following:

• A backflow preventer that had been installed on the service line to the shipyard had frozen and had been replaced with a spool piece sleeve.
• The shipyard fire protection system utilized sea water that was pumped by both electric and diesel driven pumps.
• The pumps were primed by potable city water.

With the potable priming line left open and the pumps maintaining pressure in the fire lines, raw salt water was pumped through the priming lines, through the spool sleeve piece, to the ship repair facility and the restaurant.