Raw Lake Erie water near Toledo’s intake crib today contained twice as much microcystin as it did two days ago, Toledo city officials said this evening.

Today was the third day that the city’s water-quality dashboard was on “watch” status, after microcystin was discovered for the first time this year on Monday afternoon.

Tests showed the raw water this afternoon contained 1.0 parts per billion of microcystin. Tests Monday showed. 0.5 ppb and 0.4 ppb Tuesday.

Despite the rising levels, city officials have said they plan to discontinue daily testing for the toxin that contaminated the city’s drinking water for nearly three days last summer.

City spokesman Stacy Weber said Toledo's drinking water will not be tested daily beginning Thursday.

"After today we will go back to our normal protocol of sampling every day and testing once a week,“ she said. ”This is above and beyond the Ohio EPA standard."

Ms. Weber said daily testing is not needed.

"We've always been at weekly testing," she said. "When lake levels change we will go to three times a week testing. That's indicated at 2 parts per billion in the lake. We're not even required to test by the Ohio EPA right now."

First Published July 29, 2015, 9:32 p.m.