Developing Better Indicators for Pathogen Presence in Sewage Sludges

The objective of this project was to identify those pathogens and surrogate indicator organisms that are at the highest density in raw (untreated) sewage sludge across the United States, and determine the time-temperature relationship under controlled laboratory conditions. The study provides new information about the concentrations of different organisms present in raw sewage sludge across different regions in the United States during the warm and cool seasons of the year. The results from the time-temperature studies provide useful information about the choice of indicator organisms and pathogens that can be used to evaluate temperature-based treatment technologies. Published by WERF. 90 pages. Online PDF. (2011)

Originally funded as WERF project U1R08.