Kahnawake Environmental Health Services
Challenge Detected
Kahnawake Shakotila’takenhas Community Services’ (KSCS) mission is to encourage a healthier lifestyle through promotion, prevention and wellness activities that strengthen pride, respect and responsibilities of self, family and the community as Mohawks of Kahnawake.
The KSCS Environmental Health Services (EHS) department is responsible for Kahnawake’s 9,000 residents. Their activities primarily concentrate on identifying, monitoring and mitigating health hazards in the physical environment.
As part of their water-quality monitoring program, KSCS – EHS sample water from different locations throughout the community that are connected to the treated water distribution network; they perform over 100 recreational water samples per month.
With so many testing requirements, an automated process would make water-quality testing and analysis more efficient and is much needed; fast and accurate testing is important for the maintenance and improvement of the health and wellness of Kahnawake residents.
Solution Detected
TECTA-PDS developed the TECTA™ B16 to provide accurate and fully automated testing for E. coli and Total Coliforms much faster than traditional incubation methods.
The TECTA™ B16 is an automated microbiological platform that uses patented Polymer Partition
technology. This platform is simple, sensitive and flexible,allowing the testing of samples at any time of the day.
The TECTA™ B16 supports the Environmental Health Services (EHS) department of Kahnawake processby providing an automated, rapid E. coli and Total Coliforms detection system for the assessment of microbiological water- quality and assuring the safety of drinking water.
Larry Jacobs, EHS Technician, is very impressed by TECTA™ B16 because of its speed, dependability, accuracy and fully automated process.
Success Detected
The EHS department works closely with Health Canada (all of their results are shared with HC for accountability purposes); Health Canada EHO presented Jacobs and his team with the TECTA™ B16, who began using it as a test project. Highly impressed with the system and how easy it was to use, the TECTA™ B16 quickly became EHS’ primary source for bacteria detection for their central water distribution network.
“The biggest benefit for us is the shorter timespan for bacteria results. It is also an advantage to be able to receive emails confirming results from the TECTA™ B16, which helps eliminate any human error,” says Jacobs. “In addition to using the machine for testing our distribution network, we hope to eventually use the TECTA™ B16 for all our water samples, including well water and recreational water.”