Development of Practical Methods to Assess the Presence of Bacterial Pathogens in Water

The objective of this project was to develop and evaluate a practical technique to indicate the probability of the presence of bacterial pathogens in receiving waters. A practical method was defined as one that would limit the use of defined culture-based microbiological methods, and would be based on: (1) validating indicator organisms that predicted the presence of pathogens, or (2) detection of pathogens by polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based assays. The study also assessed the utility of PCR-based technology for bacterial pathogen detection with respect to technology transfer to a wider range of water and wastewater facilities.