Jason has been in the remediation, restoration and indoor air quality industry for over sixteen years. During that time he has become one of few to earn four board awards with the American Indoor Air Quality Council: Council-certified Indoor Environmental Consultant, Council-certified Indoor Environmentalist, Council-certified Microbial Remediation Supervisor, and Council-certified Microbial Remediator. Additionally, Jason holds a certification with the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification, namely the Water-damage Restoration Technician; and has completed independent certification through other safety and health courses and subrogation. Jason owns and operates SOLUTIONS Indoor Environmental Consulting. For more information on Jason and SOLUTIONS IEC visit www.SolutionsIEC.com.
SOLUTIONS Indoor Environmental Consulting and EMSL Analytical, Inc. have a new test to determine the presence of fecal or sewage contamination! The new test is based on the extended work EMSL Analytical, Inc. is doing for the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop a more specific and more rapid test for fecal contamination in the indoor environment.
Previous sampling designs were found suspect in laboratory experiments when applied to the indoor environment because the Coliforms, E. coli, fecal strep and enterococcus sampled-for were organisms that often grew in water, soil, sediments and on vegetation in uncontaminated environments. (E. coli is found in clean environments in the tropics.) This new test uses PCR based methods of sampling to look for Bacteroides.
Bacteroides is a genus of Gram-negative, bacillus bacteria. Bacteroides species are non-endospore-forming, anaerobes, and may be either motile or non-motile, depending on the species. Testing for Bacteroides has many advantages over the traditional total coliforms, fecal coliforms, Fecal Streptococcus, Enterococcus, and E. coli tests. Some of these are:
· Bacteroides is absolutely specific for fecal contamination.
· Since Bacteroides outnumbers coliforms by 1000:1 and outnumbers E. coli by 10,000:1, the chances of finding it are greatly enhanced over traditional tests.
· Coliforms, E. coli, Fecal strep and enterococcus are culture based tests (which means when these are tested for living organisms can be identified). Unfortunately these groups of organisms die once outside of the gut and are not culturable. This means that a negative result does not mean that there is no fecal contamination present in the indoor environment! Bacteroides tests overcome this by their method of collection, PCR test, which allow us to detect live, dead, or viable but not culturable bacteria!
SOLUTIONS Indoor Environmental Consulting and EMSL Analytical, Inc. offer several means to sample for Bacteroides that are useful:
· Water
· Swab
· Soil
· Sediments
· Air
· Bulk
Applications of this new method of sampling are numerous. Some examples include but are not limited to:
· In a case of unprocessed water damage testing for Bacteroides can be a useful inclusion in order to determine the cleanliness of the water as well as the potential effects the water damage has had on the indoor environment.
· Sewage back-ups and floods should have these tests performed to determine the extent of physical damage to the structure and air of the indoor environment.
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