Mental and Social Health Commons^™

Enhanced Detection Of Groundwater Contamination From A Leaking Waste Disposal Site By Microbial Community Profiles, Paula J. Mouser, Donna M. Rizzo, Gregory K. Druschel, Sergio E. Morales, Nancy Hayden, Patrick O'Grady, Lori Stevens

College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences Faculty Publications

Groundwater biogeochemistry is adversely impacted when municipal solid waste leachate, rich in nutrients and anthropogenic compounds, percolates into the subsurface from leaking landfills. Detecting leachate contamination using statistical techniques is challenging because well strategies or analytical techniques may be insufficient for detecting low levels of groundwater contamination. We sampled profiles of the microbial community from monitoring wells surrounding a leaking landfill using terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) targeting the 16S rRNA gene. Results show in situ monitoring of bacteria, archaea, and the family Geobacteraceae improves characterization of groundwater quality. Bacterial T-RFLP profiles showed shifts correlated to known gradients of …