MATTOON, Ill. (WCIA) — Mattoon is bouncing back after an algae bloom made the water unsafe to use.

On Thursday, the city sent out a do not drink order, which was removed over the weekend. On Monday, WCIA got a chance to talk with city officials to hear how they treated the water and what they’re doing differently going forward.

City Manager Kyle Gill said they added more carbon into the water they get from Lake Paradise and Lake Mattoon. This is the first step before water goes through the full treatment process at the plant. Gill said the more you add, the less toxin there is. Now that the water is back to safe levels, Gill said the city is looking to see how they can prevent this in the future.

“We’ve had algae blooms in the past, but we’ve never had anything that have spiked as fast as this one,” Gill said.

Gill said the combination of high temperatures, heavy rainfall and fertilizer runoff made the algae spike more than expected.

“There’s definitely some things we could do better. And we’re going to be talking about those things that we can do better,” Gill added.

Gill said they’ll be looking at improvements to try and prevent these events and treat them better if they happen again.

“We did learn that, you know, more carbon helps dilute it and then we will be trying to figure out ways to monitor it and treat our lakes as well,” Gill said.

He said the city talked to other areas to ask how they dealt with algae blooms, including Bloomington and Vienna. They could use algaecide to keep it at bay, and Gill said that’s one of several options they’re looking at.

All in all, Gill said he’s pleased with how the city handled it.

“I mean, there’s definitely some things we could do better and we are going to be talking about those things that we can do better,” he said. “But no, as the team was, our department heads came together. They worked really hard.”

He said it took a little bit to establish communication with IEPA and IEMA, but once they did, the city followed all the advice they were given. But, he still feels for some local businesses that had to close, like the Milk and Honey Coffee Shop.

“We wanted to do things well and correctly and safely,” said co-owner Shelby McDowell. “So we wanted to wait, flush everything out, empty everything, sanitized everything.”

Now they’re ready to open again, but they missed out on sales because of the four-day shutdown.

“The average coffee shop in Illinois had a $1,500 a day mark and that ship statewide.” said McDowell, “So gives you a little bit of an estimate.”

The good news, McDowell said, is that people haven’t forgotten about them.

“I feel like our phone has been ringing off the hook and we are ready,” McDowell said.

Milk and Honey said they’ll be open for normal business hours.

Gill said they’ll probably keep the carbon levels where they are for now and reevaluate after further testing. He also said they haven’t gotten any reports of anyone getting sick.