New Monitoring System To Keep Water Supply Safe

The Lambton Area Water Supply System is taking a proactive approach to prevent the formation of toxic blue-green algae blooms from entering local water supplies. General Manager Susan MacFarlane says they introduced a new protocol in June. She says it's a procautionary measure as they've never experienced a blue-green algae bloom near their water intake at the bottom of the St. Clair River. "One is related to responding to a blue-green algae bloom and the other is related to monitoring for a bloom," says MacFarlane. "The Ontario Clean Water Agency, has agreed and worked with us to visually monitor for blooms over our intake on a daily basis." She says the goal is to avoid a similar situation to that of Toledo, OH. In 2014, 500,000 residents weren't able to drink their tap water because of blooms in Lake Erie. The monitoring runs from the end of May to beginning of October every year. MacFarlane says in the event of blooms, they'd have to backwash filters more frequently, avoid chlorination, and conduct added sampling.