Residents of Greater Moncton are being urged to reduce non-essential water consumption, until further notice.
Director of water and wastewater services for the city of Moncton, Nicole Taylor says water in the reservoir is very low, given the lack of rain and extreme heat we have been experiencing this summer.
However, she says it’s not as much the quantity of water they’re worried about.
There is currently a high risk of a blue-green algae bloom in the Tower Road reservoir, which supplies water to the Turtle Creek reservoir.
“What we’re concerned about is the quality of that water. The more water we can hold back in those reservoirs, keeping the water the deeper and cooler and also have the algae and the nutrients as dilute as possible, that’s what what we’re aiming for by putting these restrictions in place,” she says.
Taylor says in addition to the warm water being a catalyst for blue-green algae, lower water levels mean a higher concentration of nutrients on which it feeds off.
“Try to do what you can to try and maintain as much water as you can so it will stay cooler longer than a shallow reservoir. We don’t want to get to a point where it get so shallow that the temperature keeps rising and rising, causing more issues and then the nutrients get more concentrated,” says Taylor.
Taylor says the first phase of upgrading the water treatment centre has begun and the replacement of the first clarifier should be completed by the end of September, and the other three should be replaced by the end of the year.
The city of Moncton says water remains safe for drinking and all other regular activities such as bathing, cooking and washing.
The Turtle Creek reservoir provides water to Dieppe, Moncton and Riverview.
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