Microbial Water Quality Assessment Near Industrial Swine Operations in North Carolina
Public Deposited- Last Modified
- February 28, 2019
- Creator
-
Myers, Kevin William
- Affiliation: Gillings School of Global Public Health, Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering
- Abstract
- Agriculture in the United States has shifted from small operations to larger industrial operations. The effects of this shift on water quality have not been well characterized. This study evaluated microbial water quality in surface waters adjacent to swine lagoon waste spray fields. Surface water samples (n=189) were collected weekly from mid-February to mid-August 2010 and then monthly through mid-January 2011 from public access waters in proximity to swine lagoon spray fields in Duplin County, North Carolina. Water samples exceeded federal and state surface water quality criteria for fecal coliforms 38% of the time, and exceeded EPA recommended criteria for E. coli and Enterococcus 43% and 73% of the time, respectively. DNA was extracted from 500mL of each water sample and tested for proposed swine-specific Bacteroidales markers Pig-1-Bac, Pig-2-Bac, and Pig-Bac-2 as well as methanogen P23-2 using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Water samples did not contain methanogen P23-2, but were positive for Bacteroidales Pig-1-Bac (17%), Pig-2-Bac (13%), and Pig-Bac-2 (65%). In tests of known source waste samples, Bacteroidales Pig-1-Bac and Pig-2-Bac had specificities of 100%, while Pig-Bac-2 was observed to have a poor specificity of 37%. The sensitivities of these Bacteroidales markers ranged from 80-87%. Overall, these results could help inform management decisions for waste disposal practices and identify new tools to distinguish sources of fecal contamination in the environment.
- Date of publication
- May 2011
- DOI
- Resource type
- Rights statement
- In Copyright
- Advisor
- Heaney, Christopher
- Stewart, Jill
- Cory, Rose
- Wing, Steve
- Degree
- Master of Science in Public Health
- Academic concentration
- Environmental Health Sciences
- Degree granting institution
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Graduation year
- 2011
- Language
- Deposit record
- e00f1df6-6c31-41ba-867b-150d86a8c8cb
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