Abstract
U.S. military and allied contingency operations are increasingly occurring in locations with limited, unstable or compromised fresh water supplies. Non-potable graywater reuse is currently under assessment as a viable means to increase mission sustainability while significantly reducing the resources, logistics and attack vulnerabilities posed by transport of fresh water. Development of health-based (non-potable) exposure guidelines for the potential microbial components of graywater would provide a logical and consistent human-health basis for water reuse strategies. Such health-based strategies will support not only improved water security for contingency operations, but also sustainable military operations. Dose-response assessment of Vibrio cholerae based on adult human oral exposure data were coupled with operational water exposure scenario parameters common to numerous military activities, and then used to derive health risk-based water concentrations. The microbial risk assessment approach utilized oral human exposure V. cholerae dose studies in open literature. Selected studies focused on gastrointestinal illness associated with experimental infection by specific V. cholerae serogroups most often associated with epidemics and pandemics (O1 and O139). Nonlinear dose-response model analyses estimated V. cholerae effective doses (EDs) aligned with gastrointestinal illness severity categories characterized by diarrheal purge volume. The EDs and water exposure assumptions were used to derive Risk-Based Water Concentrations (CFU/100 mL) for mission-critical illness severity levels over a range of water use activities common to military operations. Human dose-response studies, data and analyses indicate that ingestion exposures at the estimated ED1 (50 CFU) are unlikely to be associated with diarrheal illness while ingestion exposures at the lower limit (200 CFU) of the estimated ED10 are not expected to result in a level of diarrheal illness associated with degraded individual capability. The current analysis indicates that the estimated ED20 (approximately 1000 CFU) represents initiation of a more advanced stage of diarrheal illness associated with clinical care.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 379-387 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Science of the Total Environment |
Volume | 613-614 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Feb 1 2018 |
Funding
This research was sponsored by the U.S. Army Public Health Center under U.S. Department of Energy Proposal No. 2207-M135-A1 and performed in part at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN. Oak Ridge National Laboratory is managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract DE-AC05-00OR22725.
Funders | Funder number |
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U.S. Department of Energy | 2207-M135-A1 |
U.S. Department of Energy | |
Oak Ridge National Laboratory | DE-AC05-00OR22725 |
Oak Ridge National Laboratory | |
Army Public Health Center |
Keywords
- Graywater
- Microbial risk
- Vibrio cholerae
- Water security