I had never heard of microcystin until this weekend as I was affected by the drinking water ban in the Toledo area. It also created quite a stir at work as we use city water in part of our process. So what I learned was that when algae is killed it can release certain toxins - one of which is microcystin. The city gets its water from Lake Erie and apparently the intake was sitting right in the middle of a huge algae bloom. So they were killing off huge amounts of algae in their treatment plant and the microcystin level went above the acceptable level for drinking (1 ppb). Apparently the acceptable level for skin contact is 20 ppb. This got me thinking about my pool. I have a mesh safety cover and typically open in the spring to fairly large amount of algae growth. I kill if off quickly with a SLAM but never realized killing algae could release toxins. I'm wondering if the chemical gurus on here have ever looked into this? I'm thinking the scale of what is killed in a pool algae bloom would be much lower than what the city experienced but who knows? Additionally I found out that testing for microcystin isn't too easy or cheap; took us awhile to find a lab to test our water from work and it cost $125 per sample... On a good note, it sounds like increased FC levels is what they actually used to solve the problem...
Anyone have any input?
Anyone have any input?