Mr Patsy McGlone (Mid Ulster): To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs to detail the outcomes of the Drinking Water Inspectorate’s audits of (i) the controls in place to manage the blue-green algae risk in October 2023; and (ii) the Moyola Wastewater Treatment Works in January 2024.
Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs: Following the audit of the controls in place to manage the blue-green algae risk in October 2023, the Drinking Water Inspectorate made six recommendations to Northern Ireland Water as follows:
Identification of other hazards, or hazardous events, relating to algae should be considered;
Additional monitoring of raw water quality should be put in place to improve assessment of risk in relation to algae;
Additional risk control measures should be considered to lower the likelihood of hazardous events and/or the severity of consequences of the hazards in relation to algae;
Sampling of raw water should be extended to periods outside of the algae season;
Frequency of operational monitoring of final water for algae counts, Geosmin, MIB, and Microcystin-LR should be increased and be more consistent; and
Turnaround time for Microcystin-LR analysis should be improved.
All six of these recommendations were accepted by, and have been addressed by, NI Water.
The audit of Moyola WTW in January 2024 did not identify any significant issues with the treatment process. However, the following one relevant recommendation was made by DWI
Consideration should be given to verifying the ozone demand has been met and ensuring ozone is not overdosed. Ozone is important in oxidising Microcystin-LR which is a toxin produced by cyanobacteria (blue/green algae).
This recommendation has been accepted by NI Water.
ENDS
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