Potential cryptosporidium surrogates and evaluation of compressible oocysts
- Environmental Protection Agency, Cincinnati, OH (United States); and others
Cryptosporidium has been recognized as an important waterborne agent of gastroenteritis and a biological contaminant in drinking water. The widespread presence of Cryptosporidium in surface source water and either untreated or insufficiently treated drinking water has led to Cryptosporidium outbreaks in the United States and worldwide. Among the conventional control practices, filtration and high temperature distillation appear to be the potentially viable technologies for protection against Cryptosporidium in drinking water. As employed in many water plants, filtration is likely to be the most practical treatment technology utilized for Cryptosporidium removal in the near future. Consequently, accurate and reliable methods for evaluation of Cryptosporidium removal rates for filtration-based systems are necessary to assist States in determining drinking water quality and complying with the up-coming national standard for Cryptosporidium in drinking water. Furthermore, searching for reliable and non-hazardous surrogates for evaluation of treatment plant efficiency has been intensified because of the potential health risk associated with Cryptosporidium. Additionally, during the filtration procedure Cryptosporidium may squeeze and fold through pores size of the filtration systems that are smaller than the diameter of the organism; a fraction of these Cryptosporidium oocysts may still remain a certain degree of viability. These uncertainties are critical for the evaluation and optimization of filtration-based physical treatment systems. The in-house research studies described below consist of two parts. One is a potential surrogate study using bag filtration systems at the US EPA Test & Evaluation Facility in Cincinnati, Ohio. The second is Cryptosporidium compressibility and viability investigation.
- OSTI ID:
- 111523
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9504110--
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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