Liz wrote:
Is this a different source than the one for the water that flows from the lav faucets?

Thanks for all the replies. I read somewhere too that water on airlines was treated, but that didn't stop his samples from testing positive for fecal coliform and one had E. coli. Other bacteria showed up as well - could be anything - but this test only discriminated for E. coli, general coliform and fecal coliform.

The FAs didn't know what he was doing. I really need him to start his thread on this so he can explain it all better, but he brought along alcohol to sterilize his equipment, a filtering apparatus, broth for the bacteria to feed on, Petri dishes, forceps, etc. as well as ice bags to keep the samples chilled until he could get to the hotel to test. He had 24 hours from the time he collected to run the test or the temp would be wrong. So on the planes he simply collected the samples before landing and then ran the test at the hotel. They then needed up to 72 hours to incubate. His main priority on the trips was keeping everything sterile and at the right temp.

Port Douglas water at the resort we stayed tested extremely high for fecal coliform so it wasn't too surprising that the tank water on planes flying out of Cairns had high counts too.

I think my son's hoping that this will be an on-going experiment and maybe FTers flying into the Bay Area from various places will be willing to collect water samples and we can meet them at the airport and collect them and test.




[This message has been edited by letiole (edited 04-25-2002).]