OAKDALE -- A quiet town in northeast Nebraska hasn't had much to talk about since Steve Carrell made his television debut there 20 years ago, speaking to Nebraska's Cornhusker spirit.

20 years later, the town, and that spirit, are still very much alive.

But Oakdale’s residents are now raising a little bit of a stink about the city’s water supply.

“Pretty much the smell,” said Mr. S’s Owner Art Sehi. “Maybe a little bit of the taste somewhat, but mainly smell is what they’re talking about.”

A fresh glass of Oakdale water is complemented with the fragrance of rotting eggs.

And nowhere is it more pungent than from the town’s singular source of H2O currently in operation: a sole water pump pulling double duty underneath the tower.

And where that one pump is pulling its H2O is apparently exposed to some deposits of H2S.

But some residents and the city staff say the biggest threat the water poses is just to your gag reflex-

“I would say they’re making a mountain out of a molehill,” Sehi said. “It can’t be dangerous. It’s the same water they drink all the time, it just hasn’t had time to get gasses released.”

“If you actually let it sit, the gas dissipates from the water,” said Oakdale’s Licensed Water Operator Duane Jones.

“But right now with the water tower being down, we can’t take any additional steps.”

The water tower went down on August 24th for repairs, which created the need for some water restrictions. Unfortunately, the repair crew arrived at a pretty rough time. On Facebook, one resident said her garden died.

“When they started the water tower, it’s the hottest darn week in the Summer,” Jones said. “When the company out of South Dakota comes, we had to have it done because our tower needed the work.”

Thankfully, the restrictions, and the putrescence, are expected to come to an end in the very near future.

“We have to wait for two consecutive tests to come back from the state,” Jones said, referring to the water tests that determine whether the water is safe.

“So we’re hoping that tower will go online Friday at the latest.”