Lough Neagh algae: Pharmacist says 'musty' taste of his drinking water has not improved since last week due to blue green algae or Cyanobacteria

Last Thursday Eoghan O’Brien of Bannside Pharmacy in Portglenone went public to complain in the media about the smell and taste of drinking water at his home

He lives in nearby Clady, Co Tyrone which gets drinking water from Lough Neagh.

Over the summer blooms of toxic blue-green algae have covered large parts of Lough Neagh, which supplies 40% of Northern Ireland’s drinking water. The rising health implications of the algae to drinking water and fish cattle which use water from the Lough have been an increasingly hot topic of debate in recent days.

However, almost a week after going public, Mr O'Brien says the tap water to his home is no better.

"There was a dramatic change in my water quality on Tuesday last week," he told the News Letter. “The water looks fine but has a very musty or stale taste and smell.”

He has no doubt it is linked to the blue green algae.

"I noticed the same musty smell coming off the River Bann recently."

As a result, he has only been drinking bottled water ever since.

"The local supermarket in Portglenone says they are selling so much bottled water that they are considering putting restrictions on the number of bottles per person," he said.

"It is just anecdotal, but one of their workers told me they recently had an upset stomach which cleared up when they went onto bottled water."

Responding to his comments, NI Water insisted the water is still safe to drink.

A spokeswoman said: “Increased levels of algae can cause an unusual taste and smell to water from your tap but does not pose a risk to health. The taste and smell can be earthy and/or musty. Therefore, while the water from your tap can be used in the normal way, we fully appreciate some customers might notice a difference in the taste and/or odour to their drinking water at this time.”

She added: “We can assure our customers that the water supplied from all our Water Treatment Works, which includes water abstracted from Lough Neagh, is safe to drink and use as normal.

“On a daily basis, we monitor the treated drinking water at our treatment works and at customer taps to ensure that drinking water supplied meets strict quality standards.”

NI Water has a “robust” system which sees over 120,000 samples analysed each year.

She said the water treatment works which take water from Lough Neagh are designed with the potential for algae to be present "and robust treatment processes are in place to manage this effectively".

On Tuesday the Catholic Primate Archbishop Eamon Martin of Armagh, and Church of Ireland Primate Archbishop John McDowell of Armagh called for a taskforce to deal with the problem.