No E. coli!

Simon and I did our first tap water test today - no E. coli!  Which is reassuring, given that we have already been drinking our tap water for a full month, knowing that Cali's tap water is supposed to be good quality.  But there was no water yesterday for about 4 hours, which made me suspicious, because my research group has previously shown that water stoppages can result in dirty water getting sucked into the pipes when the pressure drops.  To test the water, we used a cool new test kit - the "Aquagenx Compartment Bag Test".  Developed by researchers at UNC, it is designed to be the simplest way to test directly for E. coli and get an actual concentration instead of just a "yes" or "no" answer.  You don't need any special equipment, and they claim that you can incubate the sample anywhere between temperatures of 25 C (77 F) and 35 C (95 F).  Other tests require incubation at 35 C, which requires an incubator in most places in the world, something most people don't have sitting around in their homes.  In fact, many laboratories don't even have incubators.  Instead, we incubated the sample at room temperature during the day (~ 27 C), and then Oliver and I took turns sleeping with the sample at night.  On the second day, just to make sure we gave the E. coli sufficient opportunity to grow, I carried the sample around on my stomach all day.  So far so good.  

Unfortunately, at a research meeting today I learned that the main water source for Cali's drinking water, the Cauca River, is horrendously polluted with agricultural chemicals due to the massive sugar cane industry, coffee, bananas, and cattle and pig farms.  I am hoping that our district receives its water from a smaller river that is less impacted, but am having a hard time confirming this.  Anyway, that wouldn't help the rest of the city.  It's disappointing, because the public utility here seems to be doing so many things right, but they can't control upstream pollution in the river.