CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Water is a liquid mineral.  It consist of two atoms of hydrogen combined with one atom of oxygen. Water is a tasteless, odourless and colourless mobile liquid except in large volume where it appears blue.  It has a melting point of OoC (320f) and a boiling point of 1000C (2120f).  water is a basic necessity of life, in the absence higher animals survive only but a few hours or days.  It has several uses such  as  washing  cooking, food  processing ,swimming, and  among  others. Out  of   these  uses, drinking  of  water  seems  to  be  the  most   sensitive  as  it  could  have  a  direct   deleterious  impact  on  health  of  human  beings.

          Therefore, drinking  water  should  be  potable  free  diseases, or  toxic  substance (Beren 1991) .

          Water is portable when it is colourless.  Odourless, or tasteless and also free from poisonous, corroding, staining substances as well as disease casuiong oirganisms (Cruich 1972).  The problem of providing safe and adequate water is as old as life on earth.  Water can be made unifit or unsafe for drinking it contamination occurs either by nature or activities of human beings.    

          Perhaps the greatest danger associated with drinking water is contamination by human  excrement (Forest 1979).  In most cases, the pollution/contamination is hardly severe and is not particularly detrimental to health.

          Thus a few substances and microbes that are health hazard do occur in water, and can cause illness or even death.  From microbiological point of view, the pathogens most frequently transmitted through water supply ranges from ultrasmall virus to the microspic bacteria and relatively large cysts entemoeba instolytica.  These organism cense infectrons of intestinal trach, when consumed censing amebic dysentery, and Gardia lamblia is a protozoa responsible for Giadiasis.  Defective plumbing for example was the cause of out break during the world fair in Chicago 1933 (Garelick 1987) water borne disease cause acute diarrhoe, often last 2-3 months.  The most common water borne disease can be by bacteria includes typhoid fever, paratyphoid.  Asiatic cholera and bacteria dysentery.

          Other disease that may be transmitted by water include brucellosis, shige /losis, these disease are consuming.  Untreated water (Hetolett 1921) various countries of the world and the world Health organisation (WHO) has set up standards for water quality against which the level of pollution can be assessed.  The world Health organization (WHO) National Agency for food and Drug Administration control (NAFDAC), standard for potable water include the following, that in 100ml of water coliform bacteria should be absent, total plate count of bacteria growth should be 100 CFU/ML of water.  Hence the sanitary Quality of water should not be over looked since  contaminated water can cause health hazards when consumed.

According to guideline for drinking water quality of WHO (1998)

TABLE 1

WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION STANDARD FOR DRINKING WATER

PH

5.0 – 9.0

COLOUR

15 Hazen unit

Dissolved solids

500 mg/l

Total Hardness

500 mg/l

Calcium

75 mg/l

Iron

0.3 mg/l

Chloride

200 mg/l

Nitrate

45 mg/l

Coliform

10 colonies

1.1     AIMS / OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

          The objective of this projects is to make comparative analysis of Enugu state water cooperation provide against supplies.

          To identify contamination microbial advice on measures to control pollution  of water bodies etc.

1.2     STATEMENT OF PROBLEMS

The treated water produced by Enugu state water co-operation could be contaminated by defective plumbing which cause the rush of water out of the pipe forming pull mixed with sewage matters.  The pull eventually suck back through the burst pipe into the pipe line being distributed to various location and collected as drinking water.

1.3     HYPOTHESIS

H.O: there is difference in the microbial load of water from Enugu state water operation at point of production against the load as the point of supply and consumption.

HI:    There is statistical differences between the microbial load of water from the Enugu state water co-operation as the production point against the load as supply and consumption point.

1.4     SCOPE OF LIMITATION

The  project is set to identify only microbial pollutants  the method of microbial analysis is limited to the techniques and materials available in our laboratory as against high tech equipment which may be found else where.

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