Using the coliphage naturally present in secondary effluent to monitor performance of a water repurification process in removing virus

A procedure to monitor virus removal at an advanced water treatment (AWT) system for water repurification was developed. The procedure is based on enumerating indigenous coliphages native to waste water throughout the AWT system. Two different methods were evaluated for enumerating the indigenous coliphage, the Membrane Filtration Method (MFM) and the Double Agar Layer (DAL) method For the DAL method, C3000 host organism was used while for the MFM, tests were done using both the C3000 and the Famp host organisms. Significant natural coliphages were observed in the secondary effluent which allowed monitoring overall AWT removal in the range of 4-6 logs. Enumerating indigenous coliphages was shown to be a viable and sensitive method for monitoring the performanc- e of the AWT system in removing viruses. In addition, the MF M was shown to be an effective presence/absence test for viruses in the AWT effluent, offering results on the same day on which the sample is taken.