Water, Water Everywhere, but Every Drop Unique: Challenges in the Science to Understand the Role of Contaminants of Emerging Concern in the Management of Drinking Water Supplies.

The protection and management of water resources continues to be challenged by multiple and ongoing factors such as shifts in demographic, social, economic, and public health requirements. Physical limitations placed on access to potable supplies include natural and human-caused factors such as aquifer depletion, aging infrastructure, saltwater intrusion, floods, and drought. These factors, although varying in magnitude, spatial extent, and timing, can exacerbate the potential for contaminants of concern (CECs) to be present in sources of drinking water, infrastructure, premise plumbing and associated tap water.

Nationwide reconnaissance of contaminants of emerging concern in source and treated drinking waters of the United States.

When chemical or microbial contaminants are assessed for potential effect or possible regulation in ambient and drinking waters, a critical first step is determining if the contaminants occur and if they are at concentrations that may cause human or ecological health concerns. To this end, source and treated drinking water samples from 29 drinking water treatment plants (DWTPs) were analyzed as part of a two-phase study to determine whether chemical and microbial constituents, many of which are considered contaminants of emerging concern, were detectable in the waters. Of the 84 chemicals monitored in the 9 Phase I DWTPs, 27 were detected at least once in the source water, and 21 were detected at least once in treated drinking water.

Epidemiology of nontuberculous mycobacteria isolations among central North Carolina residents, 2006-2010.

Background: Nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) are environmental mycobacteria associated with a range of infections. Reports of NTM epidemiology have primarily focused on pulmonary infections and isolations, however extrapulmonary infections of the skin, soft tissues and sterile sites are less frequently described.

Methods: We comprehensively reviewed laboratory reports of NTM isolation from North Carolina residents of three counties during 2006-2010.

Amplified fragment length polymorphism analysis of Mycobacterium avium complex isolates recovered from southern California.

Fine-scale genotyping methods are necessary in order to identify possible sources of human exposure to opportunistic pathogens belonging to the Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC). In this study, amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) analysis was evaluated for fingerprinting 159 patient and environmental MAC isolates from southern California. AFLP analysis accurately identified strains belonging to M.