Getting Water Samples from Four-Pole Creek

My dad and I collected water samples from various locations at Four-Pole Creek. We did this to try to determine if bacteria was coming out of certain sewage pipes and if it had the potential of spreading fecal-oral diseases.

Trial Run on Examination of water in Four-Pole Creek for fecal contamination.

Purpose – Study impact of fecal contamination on Four-Pole Creek because of

potential fecal-oral spread diseases.

1. Method selected - MFc - membrane filtration method with incubation at 44.50C to select only mammalian coliforms vs. environmental.

2. Site selected – See map – approx. 50 m below bridge to tennis center.
3. Collected samples in sterile specimen cups with screw-capped lids.
4. Lab – Micro. Cons. - Passed 1ml, 10ml, and 25ml volumes of the sample through a membrane bacterial filter, which was placed on a pad in a small petri dish

soaked with MFc broth. This was incubated in a water bath at exactly 44.50C for 24hrs.

         Results – See photo of plates.  Counting could not be done on a colony counter because the plates were opaque. Instead, pictures of each plate were taken, and the colonies were counted on those.  

Tuesday's Samples

           

 25ml plate:  TNTC (Too High to Count)

            10ml plate: 157

              1ml plate: 16

25ml plate:  TNTC (Too High to Count)

            10ml plate: 144

              1ml plate: 16

            Confirmation that coliforms were fecal in origin:  Test for presence of Escherichia coli,which is found only in feces, and is not found in the environment except in feces.

            Method was to perform glucose fermentation, lactose fermentation, citrate utilization, sulfide production, motility, indole production, phenylalanine deaminase production, and oxidase production.  See photo of those tests, with the results: