BIOLOGICAL STABILITY OF GROUNDWATER

Conventional (e.g., coagulation, flocculation, and filtration) or memb rane filtration treatment trains were used to remove organic compounds from groundwater. For the conventional train with sand-anthracite col umns, the assimilable organic carbon (AOC) of the groundwater was redu ced from 349 +/- 127 mu g/L C to 54 +/- 51 mu g/L C. For the membrane filtration train, there was no statistical difference between the AOC of the raw water influent (388 +/- 126 mu g C) and that this treatment produced biologically unstable water. Similar results were obtained u sing the heterotrophic methods showed that HGR was positively correlat ed with AOC (r = 0.52; P < 0.0001; n = 156), indicating that AOC only partially explains the ability of heterotrophic bacteria to grow in wa ter samples.