Evaluation of Different Biomass Parameters for Microbial Monitoring of Oil Polluted Ground Water

Abstract

The most efficient process for trace organic removal in ground waters is microbial degradation. For this reason it is of interest to get a biomass parameter to reflect the degradation potential in ground water contaminant monitoring. But it has often proved difficult to obtain reliable bacterial counts in natural samples. It is especially true for subsurface environments, which due to extreme environmental conditions put stress on the inherent bacterial community in different ways. None of the traditional methods to enumerate microorganisms take into account such conditions and thus no single method can be considered as ideal when dealing with ground water samples. Hence many subsurface degradation studies are performed without any knowledge about the density of the bacterial biomass responsible for the degradation, and until now very few studies have tried to relate biomass to degradation potential. It is even more complicated when thr specific degradation potential has to be expressed. This study compare different biomass parameters to kinetic constants derived from Lineweaver Burke plots in uncontaminated and petroleum contaminated ground waters.