Western Lake Erie’s chronic algae, a nearly annual problem since 1995, is weeks away from blooming.

But a coalition of government officials and university scientists want to assure the public they’re getting ready for it now.

First, the forecast: While it’s impossible to know how much algae could be choking the lake come July or August, preliminary indications are 2016’s bloom will be milder than last summer and most likely about average in size.

That’s the word from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is working with Heidelberg University’s National Center for Water Quality Research to come up with better predictions.

NOAA and Heidelberg use NASA satellite images, long-term weather forecasts, and historic runoff data to tweak their modeling from year to year, which they readily admit is a work in progress.

RELATED: NOAA’s Lake Erie Harmful Algal Bloom Early Season Projection

Last year at this time, they guessed western Lake Erie’s bloom would be about average too.

It wasn’t.

After northwest Ohio was inundated with record rain in June and early July, the 2015 bloom became the largest on record.

Yet it wasn’t as toxic as the 2014 bloom, a reminder that the size and toxicity of blooms aren’t related.

The most reliable forecast NOAA and Heidelberg put out will be made during a sixth annual midsummer event planned for Ohio State University’s Stone Laboratory.

Weekly bulletins leading up to that event began last year because of heightened interest following the 2014 Toledo water crisis.

The first in that series of bulletins was released Tuesday.

At a news conference inside Toledo’s Collins Park Water Treatment Plant that day, Laura Johnson, Heidelberg National Center for Water Quality Research director, said there hasn’t been an average-sized bloom for years. If weather patterns hold, this one will be about the size of the 2009 bloom, she said.

At that same news conference, the city of Toledo unveiled a web-based water quality dashboard it has developed for 2016. It is to be posted on the city’s website soon.

This will be the second year for one. The biggest change is the needle won’t move out of the far left “clear” zone until the chief algal toxin, microcystin, drawn into the city’s intake is at a concentration of 5 parts per billion or more. That’s the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency action level for testing three times a week.

Last year, that threshold was at 0.3 ppb, the lowest-detectable concentration.

City officials agreed during the off-season that putting out warnings when raw water is that low causes confusion. That 0.3 ppb level is the point at which water may be dangerous for children 5 years old and younger, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency guidelines released last year.

But that’s for finished water. Collins Park and other water-treatment plants can safely remove toxins at much higher concentrations.

“If we had used that [5 ppb] last year, that needle would not have moved one time,” Ed Moore, Toledo utilities director, said of the new threshold for alerting the public.

The new water-quality dashboard also takes into account the new U.S. EPA health guidelines for treated tap water.

Heidi Griesmer, Ohio EPA spokesman, said Toledo and other Ohio public water systems that draw from surface water are required to test for microcystin in raw and finished water at least once weekly from June 1 through Oct. 31. Starting Nov. 1, they might be allowed to reduce monitoring to every other week.

Also at the news conference, Warren Henry, an engineer the city hired to oversee more than $300 million of improvements authorized in 2013, said the city soon will be take bids on one of the biggest projects in that plan, a $79 million plan to add ozone treatment as a finishing process. That will help further reduce toxins, improve taste, reduce odor, and remove more trihalomethanes, potentially dangerous chemical products of chlorine.

The ozone addition is to be constructed in 2017 and completed by 2020. Most of the other major improvements are scheduled to be competed by 2022, Mr. Henry said.

The news conference featured eight speakers, including Ohio EPA Director Craig Butler, who was scheduled to testify Tuesday afternoon on a bill for stronger lead-reporting requirements being heard by the Ohio Senate’s energy and natural resources committee. That bill was inspired by the Flint water crisis and a smaller one in Sebring, Ohio, both from lead pollution.

Mr. Butler drew parallels between Toledo, Flint, and Sebring in his remarks, saying clean water is one of the greatest forms of trust between government and the public it serves.

“We will continue to prepare and [make improvements] so Ohioans will feel safe when they turn on the tap for a drink of water,” Mr. Butler said.

University of Toledo algae researcher Tom Bridgeman said UT’s monitoring buoy was deployed into the water on Monday. It is another advance warning tool for water-treatment plant operators, and it is one of several monitoring buoys brought into the region by UT, Bowling Green State University, Stone Laboratory, and government agencies since the Toledo water crisis.

“We know anything can happen,” Mr. Bridgeman said.

Ms. Johnson said scientists have developed a new category of phosphorus called “total bioavailable phosphorus,” to better track specific types of phosphorus that help algae grow faster.

There are more than 200 forms of algae, many good for fish and plants.

The most dominant one in Lake Erie since 1995 is microcystis, which — at 3.5 billion years old — is one of the oldest living things on Earth. It is the main carrier of microcystin, one of the more potent toxins in nature.

Climate change and invasive species are believed to be contributing to larger blooms of it across the world, not just in Lake Erie, but also China’s Lake Taihu, Africa’s Lake Victoria, and large bodies of water from the Arctic Circle to the bottom tip of South America.

For more information, go to lakeeriealgae.com/​forecast.

To sign up for text alerts from the city of Toledo, go to toledo.oh.gov.

Contact Tom Henry at: thenry@theblade.com, 419-724-6079, or via Twitter @ecowriterohio.

First Published May 18, 2016, 4:00 a.m.