It is not completely true that testing methods have not changed for many years. We have been running bacterial DNA to get a far better and more accurate identification of what is growing in a system. It is extremely difficult to identify some bacteria by way of running cultures. An example is where you have iron or manganese depositing bacteria. Their destructive work is very visible during equipment inspections but finding their existence in a water sample in some cases is zero. This is also the case with legionella. You may not find viable cells but if you find their DNA, you know you have them. That makes finding where they are a little easier because you know that you must look.
Published by Terry Scheurman, President at Applied Specialties, Inc.
It is not completely true that testing methods have not changed for many years. We have been running bacterial DNA to get a far better and more accurate identification of what is growing in a system. It is extremely difficult to identify some bacteria by way of running cultures. An example is where you have iron or manganese depositing bacteria. Their destructive work is very visible during equipment inspections but finding their existence in a water sample in some cases is zero. This is also the case with legionella. You may not find viable cells but if you find their DNA, you know you have them. That makes finding where they are a little easier because you know that you must look.