Wastewater treatment plants depend on multiple microbes for their performance, and yet operators typically lack deep information about the different bacteria at work.
Drinking water plants, meanwhile, need to battle microbes that could cause problems in their distribution systems or at customers’ taps.Now, DNA sequencing technology holds promise to give water and wastewater operators more complete information about the bacteria in their systems. One company offering the technology is Microbe Detectives, formed in 2012. From a sample of mixed liquor (from a wastewater plant) or a sample of well water, tap water or raw water (from a water utility), the company
