Tamworth Environmental Laboratory (TEL)
Challenge Detected
Tamworth Environmental Laboratory (TEL) is a unit of Tamworth Regional Council (TRC) and primarily offers environmental testing services to the North West, Northern Tablelands and Liverpool Plains regions of New South Wales in Australia. This area incorporates regional cities and remote and isolated communities.
Accredited by the National Association of Testing Authorities
(NATA) for a range of environmental testing parameters and for environmental sampling, TEL is now NATA accredited for using the TECTA™ B16 for E. coli and Total Coliforms analysis.
Currently their laboratory collects samples for microbiological testing which are then transported overnight and sub-contracted for testing and reporting. This means there is a minimum of 48 hours before results are available.
Senior management were searching for an option for fast response to any potential public health issue in relation to microbiological parameters for potable and domestic water supply, and TECTA™ B16 meets this requirement. TECTA™ B16 turn-around time for Total Coliforms, E. coli and Fecal Coliforms analysis from sampling to receipt of report has been reduced from a minimum of 48 hours to a maximum of 18 hours or less.
Solution Detected
The space utilised by the TECTA™ B16 in their laboratory is far less than other available methods. Previously they required incubators, flame source, autoclave for sterilisation of apparatus, media plates and sterile media. Now they only require space for the unit and the cartridges.
Other methods require specialised training for staff and contain many points for contamination during the analytical process. TECTA™ B16 methodology has minimal staff training hours, minimal points for contamination of samples, and in addition offers 100% objective test results.
The provision of results by email by TECTA™ B16 provides immediate response times without the on-site labour requirements or need to interpret tests results in the lab within specific time window after incubation.
The TECTA™ B16 will also provide means of electronic data transfer for bacteriology results to other platforms used in their laboratory, such as, their Laboratory Information Management System and linked customer spreadsheets of historical data.
Success Detected
Tamworth is host to the Tamworth Country Music Festival (TCMF). Forty-five years young, the TCMF is a leading tourism event for NSW and internationally recognized as one of the top 10 festivals in the world and the largest country music festival in the southern hemisphere. Contributing in excess of $51m to the local economy, it attracts a staggering 50,000 people. Essentially the population of Tamworth doubles for the ten days of the festival. Please visit tcmf.com.au for further information on this major event. The TECTA™ B16 has enabled further security to microbiological response times during this massive increase in population to the City of Tamworth.