A new, automated rapid fluorometric method for the detection of Escherichia coli in recreational waters

Membrane filtration/culture techniques have been demonstrated to be reliable and broadly applicable for determination of fecal contamination in recreational waters. The time-consuming nature of culture techniques, however, is viewed as the major disadvantage of this type of analysis, and many authors have asserted the need for improved rapid-detection methods. In this study, we evaluated the performance of the ENDETEC (TM) TECTA (TM) B16, an automated fluorometty-based microbial detection system, by comparing its detection time and accuracy to those of two common culture-based methods, which are widely-used for recreational water quality monitoring in Canada. Our results demonstrated that Escherichia coli densities inferred by the TECTA (TM) method were generally in agreement with those generated by standard culture methods (y = 1.19x + 0.002, R-2 = 0.89) and under the current calibration regime, TECTA (TM) tended to slightly overestimate E. coli densities. In addition, TECTA (TM) was able to detect E. coli densities in exceedance of the Ontario Provincial Water Quality Objective for recreational waters in as little as 4 h (mean detection time = 7.03 h), representing a substantial improvement over traditional culture techniques. Our findings suggest that with improved calibration, TECFA (TM) may provide a viable, cost-effective, rapid alternative to culture approaches for the detection of fecal contamination in recreational waters. (c) 2014 International Association for Great Lakes Research. Published by Elsevier BAT. All rights reserved.