Abstract

Water quality assessment of certain microbial pollution indicators arising from the industrial effluent of Indo-Food Company (Indomie) on water samples collected at five different sampling points of new Calabar Rivers was carried out. The sampling points were upstream, effluent fall out points, 200, 400 and 600 m distances from the fallout point. Using the control (upstream) as an index of comparism to determine extent of pollution caused by the industrial effluent discharge, the results of the analysis indicated a significant difference in the microbial parameters assessed between the control and fallout points, indicating that this sampling point was polluted as a result of the direct effluent discharge at the sampling at this sampling point. The microbial analysis indicated that the viable bacterial counts of the samples ranged from 5.4 x10³ to 26 x 10³ cfu(Table 1) suggesting that the water samples contain heavy microbial load. The biochemical identification of the isolate in the water samples showed that Staphylococcus aureus, Shigella sp., Proteus vulgaris, Escherichia coli and Citrobacter sp. pre dominated the water samples while the fungal microscopy identified Candida species, Fusarium, Circinotrichum and Cephaliophora in the water samples (Table 3). The elevated levels of microbial pollution indicators would invariably affect the taste, small, appearance and aesthetic properties of the river water and thus pose a potential health hazard of varying degrees to various life forms that depend on the water for survival and recreational purposes. A routine treatment of the effluent before discharge is therefore highly recommended to maintain safe levels of the microbial pollutants in the immediate and extended environment.

Key words: Microbial parameters, effluent, pollution and environment.