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Some chemical and bacterial characteristics of bottom deposits from lakes and estuaries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2009

L. A. Allen ,
J. Grindley  and
Eileen Brooks
L. A. Allen
Affiliation:
Water Pollution Research Laboratory, Langley Road, Watford, Herts.
J. Grindley
Affiliation:
Water Pollution Research Laboratory, Langley Road, Watford, Herts.
Eileen Brooks
Affiliation:
Water Pollution Research Laboratory, Langley Road, Watford, Herts.
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Chemical and bacteriological examination of muds from sources differing widely in the degree of pollution to which they were subject showed great differences in the contents of carbon, nitrogen and sulphide. These differences were not correlated with differences in the severity of faecal pollution. The amount of organic matter available for growth of micro-organisms in the mud of different depths was not reflected in the figures for organic carbon. A convenient index of this factor was obtained by measuring the volume of gas evolved during anaerobic digestion over a prolonged period of incubation. The rate of evolution was increased by the addition of an inoculum of digested sludge from a sewage works.

Sulphate-reducing bacteria appeared to be of two different types. In samples of mud from fresh-water lakes much higher counts were usually obtained in a medium containing comparatively low concentrations of inorganic salts and of lactate than in a medium containing much higher concentrations of these constituents. In samples from locations where conditions were more saline the reverse was usually true.

Counts of Bact. coli and of Strep, faecalis together probably constitute the best index of faecal pollution in the examination of samples of mud. These organisms are, however, largely confined to the surface layers.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Hygiene , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , June 1953 , pp. 185 - 194
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1953

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