Just a short post here about a new study published in Environmental Health Perspectives “Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) Detected at Four U.S. Wastewater Treatment Plants”
Unlike some of the stories we rag on about potential pathogens in the built environment (things like “we found E. coli!”), there is a real concern about finding MRSA in this environment. It’s not too surprising that they find it coming into the facilities, and encouragingly they detect less of it at each stage of the treatment process. However, in one case they found it in the final treated water and that seems like a problem.
What’s worse, only E. coli is normally tested as an indicator of microbial contaminants in the supply sent from public water treatment plants that supply drinking water to the vast majority of Americans.