Moncton's water supply has cyanobacteria. Here's what the city is doing about it

Loon calls echoed across the Turtle Creek watershed on a recent overcast July morning as two people in a small boat collected water samples from the Tower Road reservoir, near Moncton.

The boat was laden with coolers packed with small bottles that, within hours, would be sent off to labs for testing.

It's part of the city's monitoring for cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, in the water supply for the province's largest metro area.

The photosynthetic bacteria can be found in many waterways and isn't necessarily harmful, but some types can produce toxins harmful to humans and animals.

The discovery of cyanobacteria in the reservoir six years ago triggered a multimillion-dollar research and upgrade effort that's ongoing.

Soon, the city will decide how to spend millions more at its water treatment plant to address the risk of toxins.

The city says water flowing through taps across Moncton, Dieppe and Riverview remains safe. The sampling is to know whether that could change.

"We want to make sure we're monitoring so that we know what's coming into the water treatment plant all the time," Nicole Taylor, the city's director of water and wastewater, said in an interview. 

"And it also gives us time to prepare."

Some of the samples collected that humid morning are trucked to Dalhousie University in Halifax where researchers working with the city look for changes in both chemical and microbiological quality and consider ways to treat the water.

"Our lab has tested for the algal species, but also for the ways, in this case for the City of Moncton, the ways that we can safely remove and treat them," Graham Gagnon, a Dalhousie professor and director of the Centre for Water Resource Studies, said in an interview. 

Gagnon said cyanobacteria in a water supply isn't unique to Moncton. 

"It's certainly something that has occurred across the Maritimes. We have worked with a number of water utilities," Gagnon said.

A 2016 Health Canada publication says cyanobacteria blooms have been observed in drinking water sources in almost every province and territory.