MONROE — Monroe is updating it ozone system to control potential taste-and-odor problems with replacement one of two ozone generators for a cost of nearly $1,000,000. The new ozone generator is to become operational by Aug. 15. The ozone generators were installed in 1997 and 2001, but the 1997 ozone generator has failed and is being replaced with a larger generator. Design modifications will allow the Monroe to eventually install a third ozone generator to help increase the plant’s treatment capacity.
Monroe is Michigan’s only city to draw its water from Western Lake Erie. The main part of the water plant opened on March 1, 1924. Toledo and Port Clinton also draw their water from the shallow western basin.
Injecting ozone into the water after it’s been pulled from the lake is part of Monroe’s first-treatment process to improve taste and remove odors. The plant’s ozone capacity also is being increased to help fend off toxins found in western Lake Erie’s most prevalent form of harmful blue-green algae, microcystis. The main toxin in that algae is called microcystin.
One of Lake Erie’s worst algae outbreaks occurred this summer. It wasn’t as large as the record 2011 bloom. But the toxin was so concentrated in the Oak Harbor area that it overwhelmed a water-treatment system that serves 2,000 residents of Ottawa County’s Carroll Township. That event was the first in Ohio history to cause an emergency closure of a water plant because of algae toxins. Residents were provided bottled water until the township was able to get uncontaminated tap water from Port Clinton. The township flushed out its system and put its plant back into service after the threat subsided.