Cyanotoxin control strategies in drinking water

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This project is supported by six drinking water treatment utilities in southern Ontario (Toronto, Hamilton, Niagara, York, Durham, and the Union Water Supply System) that share a common concern about the risk of cyanobacteria and their toxins in their drinking water sources. As part of their broader efforts to implement risk mitigation programs, they wish to address the following knowledge gaps:(1) the need for a tool to easily predict when granular activated carbon contactors reach exhaustion in terms of cyanotoxin adsorption;(2) quantification of the risk of cyanobacteria cell accumulation in settlers and filters, despite low to moderate cell concentrations in source water; and (3) determining the operational feasibility of using an online in vivo phycocyanin probe to provide early warning of cyanobacteria blooms.The research will take place over three years and include modelling of GAC adsorption, lab-scale testing of GAC "minicolumn" tools to predict full-scale contactor breakthrough, pilot-scale GAC adsorption research, and full-scale sampling campaigns to detect cyanobacteria cell accumulation in plants and the response of an in vivo phycocyanin probe. The project will support one full-time Ph.D. student, two undergraduate summer/co-op students, and a research chemist (part-time allocation). The project will be guided by regular meetings with academic and industrial participants and will culminate in a workshop to bring together experts and stakeholders to disseminate the research results, and to discuss the current state-of-the-art on the topic of cyanobacteria.