Fate and transport model of Cryptosporidium

The waterborne pathogen Cryptosporidium has been identified in surface drin king water supplies. Suspected sources of this pathogen include sewage and the feces of animals, particularly dairy calves. There are many dairy cattl e and significant sewage effluent discharges in the Catskill-Delaware water shed that is part of the New York City water supply system. This water supp ly serves 8,000,000 customers with 5.8 x 10(9) L (1.5 billion gal. of water daily). This paper is concerned with the movement and fate of pathogens fr om wastewater and dairy sources and the resulting raw water quality for New York City. Manure and Cryptosporidium oocysts are modeled as surface pollu tants and assumed to move in response to runoff events in the six watershed -reservoir systems within the Catskill-Delaware watershed. Oocyst degradati on in manure and in water is modeled with first-order kinetics. Rudimentary stream routing and reservoir modeling with a first-order decay function co mplete the fate and transport modeling of oocysts in the watercourse. Repor ted effluent discharge rates and oocyst concentrations in secondary treated sewage allow estimation of wastewater-derived oocyst contributions. This r esearch highlights the importance of wastewater-derived oocysts, the need f or expanded research into oocyst fate in streams and reservoirs, and the co ncentration of oocysts in sewage effluent.