The quality of drinking water is currently a pressing issue, which plays a special role in the initiative of environmental protection, ecology and hygienics. When any sector of modern industry is developing, its activities are associated with a possible risk of contamination of water used by the population as drinking water, and with generation of industrial wastewater polluted with chemically aggressive agents, which are dangerous to human health. The authors of this paper produce an assessment of risks with respect to the indicators of the olfactory-reflex effect of drinking water samples obtained in Kazan. The research results allow for an assessment of the level of health risk, which the city residents would face because of drinking water ingestion, and for a specification of polluting substances through sensory evaluation.