Evaluation of Bacteriological Quality of Drinking Water in the City Center of Tunceli, Turkey

The aim of this study was to evaluate the bacteriological contamination of drinking water in Tunceli, Turkey. For this purpose, the presence of total coliforms, Escherichia coli, and Enterococci was investigated at ten water sampling stations in the Tunceli province. The microbiological dataset of the ten stations were obtained from the Health Directorate of Tunceli for this study. Detection of E. coli and total coliform was performed using the membrane filtration method, Turkish Standards (TS) 9308- 1.(1) Enterococci were enumerated according to the TS 7899-2(2) method. Varying levels of bacterial contamination were recorded in samples from these ten stations. It was observed that bacterial contamination was highest in the village of Burmagecit. Results indicate that microbiological contaminations were found to be above the allowable amount for drinking waters given by the World Health Organization (WHO). Because of this, appropriate disinfection methods and regular quality control mechanisms must be implemented by the Health Directorate of Tunceli.