Digital Commons Network^™

Temporal Heterogeneity Of Water Quality From Rural Water Supplies In Alabama, Jessica C. Wedgworth, Joe Brown, Julie B. Olson, Pauline D. Johnson, Mark Elliott, Phillip Grammer

Public Health Faculty Publications

Temporal and spatial trends for key water quality measures were evaluated in 12 rural drinking water systems within a threecounty study area in Alabama. The water systems varied in size from very small (25–500 people served) to large (10,001–100,000 people served). Large-volume water samples were collected from 10 diverse locations within each system on three sampling dates. Sampling locations were assigned to one of five location categories: well, post-treatment, post-storage, in-line, and endline. Water quality parameters (i.e., free and total chlorine, pH, turbidity, pressure, heterotrophic plate count) and microbial indicators (i.e., total coliforms, Escherichia coli, Enterococci, male-specific coliphages) were analyzed …