The increasing occurrence of water main breaks attributed to aging water infrastructure and other disaster-related events magnify the growing risk of microbial contamination in drinking water.
Conventional methods for assessing water quality after waterline disruptions involve using time-consuming fecal indicator culture-based techniques that fail to detect the sources of contamination. Thus, rapid emergency responses are critically needed to safeguard public health and swiftly resume community functioning.
Researchers from the College of Public Health, at Ohio State University, performed a pilot study comparing the current microbial quality method that relies on a 24 hour culture time for E. Coli detection, against a new method using the Concentrating Pipette™ paired with rapid molecular methods (ddPCR) for detection of multiple target organisms. The new method proved to be more comprehensive for a variety of drinking water quality threats as well as shortening the time to detection from 24 hours to 6 hours!
Overall, the authors highlight the Concentrating Pipette + ddPCR approach overcomes many limitations of the standard culture methods and enables greater sensitivity, specificity, and rapid results which enable faster response to drinking water contamination events.
Read the Paper
Advanced preparedness for drinking water emergency: Ensuring safe microbial quality with rapid microbial source tracking and E. coli methods. Lancaster, et al.
in Environmental Advances Volume 13, October 2023, 100426