Wichita ? Nine months from now, city officials in Wichita say the fishy odor that has tainted the local water for the last couple years should be gone.

On Friday, construction began on a $7.5 million system that will treat a majority of the city’s water supply with ozone, a highly reactive oxygen molecule that city experiments have shown removes impurities.

A 6,000-square-foot building at Cheney Reservoir, which provides 60 percent of the city’s water, will house two ozone generators.

Construction should be completed by May, just in time for when hot weather fosters growth of blue-green algae in the reservoir.

Officials say that the algae, also called cyanobacteria, generates organic compounds that produce the funky taste and odor that has led some residents and visitors to stop Mayor Carlos Mayans on the street to complain.

“Believe me, it’s a pet peeve of mine, too,” Mayans said during a groundbreaking ceremony Friday.

Mayans said the system, which the city has tested for the last year, will help the city attract new businesses, tourism and industry to town.

“I want people to have a good impression of Wichita and our water,” he said.

The ozone system also should be cheaper than the city’s current practice of adding powder-activated carbon to drinking water at a pumping station, said David Warren, director of the city’s water department.

Warren said the carbon plan costs $1 million a year and will continue until the ozone system is up and running.

Once in place, that system should cost about $600,000 a year and will be permanent, he said.

Cheney Reservoir is one of five water supply lakes in Kansas prone to blue-green algae blooms, state officials said.

Winfield, Olathe and Alma are among other cities that also get complaints in the summer.

Emporia installed ozone technology nine years ago. Since then, officials there said, the odor complaints have stopped.