Are cyanobacteria a year-round problem in water supplies?
No. Canadian water supplies are unlikely to contain cyanobacteria during the winter, although some hepatotoxins may linger. How do water treatment plants deal with cyanobacteria? Most municipal water treatment plants do not regularly look for cyanobacterial toxins in the water supply. However, because cyanobacteria have strong smells and tastes and interfere with certain water treatment processes, most municipalities with a history of blooms monitor their surface water supplies for cyanobacteria. Once cyanobacteria are detected in the water supply, treatment plants can remove them in a number of ways. Conventional water treatment facilities can remove the cells by adding chemicals that bind them together. As the cells clump together, they become heavier and fall to the bottom of the reservoir or tank, where they can be easily filtered out. While this method will remove cells, it will not remove potentially harmful cyanobacterial toxins. These can be removed using certain oxidation proc
