Relationship between coliform culturability and organic matter in low nutritive waters

The objective of this work was to investigate the behaviour of coliform bacteria in specific low nutritive waters conveying organic fractions from different origin of which an unknown part is likely to pass through the treatment barrier. For this purpose, we studied the growth (microscopic counting) and the culturability (count on nutritive medium) of ten coliform bacteria species as a function of the amount of organic matter in a river water collected after a period of heavy rain and in an algal bloom water. Assays were carried out in the presence of autochthonous heterotrophic bacteria from the Nancy (France) drinking water, with variable concentrations of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) representative of drinking waters (0.5-1.5 mgl(-1) for diluted river water samples and 1.3-2.5 mgl(-1) for diluted algal bloom water samples). Bacterial growth was measured in the two types of water, regardless of the initial concentration of DOC. We found that coliform bacteria lost their culturability in both sample series, and that the lower the initial DOC concentration the more rapidly the culturability was lost. The quantity of DOC consumed by the bacteria in the two water types (0.03-0.13 mgl(-1) in river water and 0.77-1.29 mgl(-1) in algal bloom water) and the resulting consequences on bacterial behaviour suggested that bloom water contains algal organic compounds that are antagonistic to the growth and/or the culturability of coliform bacteria. Organic matter thresholds, beyond which coliform bacteria are unlikely to keep their culturability, have not been determined experimentally. Indeed, at the end of the assays some culturable coliform bacteria were systematically detected in both types of water. Enterobacter cloacae was the predominant species. Thus, during these adverse events the probability of coliform occurrence can be considered as high in treated water. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.