We are in the final days of the Volunteer Shoreline Harmful Algae Bloom Program, with an official end date of Sunday, October 3rd. Next Friday will be our last weekly water quality update. We hope you have found these weekly reports to be helpful throughout the summer and fall months. 

Current Water Quality 

So far this week,  two blooms have been reported. The first report of a small, localized bloom came in last weekend on Saturday 9/25 in Crystal Beach on the east side of the lake.  While this bloom was officially clocked in on last week’s reporting week, we want to mention it as it was sampled and we received the results this week confirming the bloom above the DEC threshold (See table results below, as well as a write up at the bottom of the update from the volunteer who sampled it!)

On Wednesday, October 29th, another small, localized bloom was observed along the waterfront of the Canandaigua Yacht Club. The volunteer reported that the remainder of the shoreline was clear and free of blooms. A sample was collected and sent to the Finger Lakes Institute for analysis (See table results, below). 

We had one other bloom reported on Monday 9/27 by the boat houses, but upon further investigation of the photos it appeared to be a mixture of duckweed / watermeal and aquatic plant fragments, not a bloom. 

Municipal Drinking Water Test Results 

For the first time this year, two municipal water treatment systems – the City of Canandaigua and the Village of Palmyra – had low but detectable levels of microcystin (the toxin produced by cyanobacteria / blue green algae) show up in the raw (untreated) water samples collected on Monday, 9/27.  Samples of the finished drinking water (after treatment was applied) had non  detectable levels of microcystin.  

This sampling was part of the proactive routine microcystin testing that all six Canandaigua Lake water purveyors (the City of Canandaigua, the Village of Newark, the Village of Palmyra, the Village of Rushville, the Town of Gorham, and Bristol Harbour) participate in for testing of both raw (untreated) and finished (treated) drinking water. 

It’s important to reiterate that the finished drinking water was reported as non-detectable in all drinking water systems indicating that municipal water continues to be safe to drink. 

Results for the season are as follows: 

Routine testing for microcystin in the municipal water systems on Canandaigua Lake is scheduled for a few more weeks.  The State Department of Health will continue to work closely with the water purveyors to assess sampling needs moving forward. 

For more information, check out the HABs and Drinking water page on the CLWA website. 

As always, we encourage you to follow our reports on our website, and on the facebook page for further information.