ARTICLE IN PRESS

Water Research 38 (2004) 601–610

Removal of soft deposits from the distribution system

improves the drinking water quality
Markku J. Lehtolaa,*, Tarja K. Nissinenb, Ilkka T. Miettinena,
Pertti J. Martikainenc, Terttu Vartiainenb,c
a
Laboratory of Environmental Microbiology, National Public Health Institute, P.O. Box 95, Kuopio 70701, Finland
b
Laboratory of Chemistry, National Public Health Institute, P.O. Box 95, Kuopio 70701, Finland
c
Department of Environmental Sciences, Bioteknia 2, University of Kuopio, P.O. Box 1627, Kuopio 70211, Finland
Received 20 September 2002; received in revised form 23 October 2003; accepted 30 October 2003

Abstract

Deterioration in drinking water quality in distribution networks represents a problem in drinking water distribution.
These can be an increase in microbial numbers, an elevated concentration of iron or increased turbidity, all of which
affect taste, odor and color in the drinking water. We studied if pipe cleaning would improve the drinking water quality
in pipelines. Cleaning was arranged by flushing the pipes with compressed air and water. The numbers of bacteria and
the concentrations of iron and turbidity in drinking water were highest at 9 p.m., when the water consumption was
highest. Soft deposits inside the pipeline were occasionally released to bulk water, increasing the concentrations of iron,
bacteria, microbially available organic carbon and phosphorus in drinking water. The cleaning of the pipeline decreased
the diurnal variation in drinking water quality. With respect to iron, only short-term positive effects were obtained.
However, removing of the nutrient-rich soft deposits did decrease the microbial growth in the distribution system
during summer when there were favorable warm temperatures for microbial growth. No Norwalk-like viruses or
coliform bacteria were detected in the soft deposits, in contrast to the high numbers of heterotrophic bacteria.
r 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Drinking water; Distribution system; Bacteria; Nutrient; Iron; Pipe cleaning; Biofilm

1. Introduction microbiological and chemical changes which deteriorate

The quality of drinking water leaving from water-
works usually meets the standards for chemical and
microbiological quality. However, there are often
Abbreviations: AOC, Assimilable organic carbon; AOCpotential,
Assimilable organic carbon analyzed with addition of inorganic
nutrients; CFU/ml, Colony forming units per milliliter; FTU,
Formazine turbidity unit; HPC, Heterotrophic plate counts;
MAP, Microbially available phosphorus; NLV, Norwalk-like
virus; NOX, Spirillum NOX bacteria strain; P17, Pseudomonas
fluorescens P17 bacteria strain; TOC, Total organic carbon
*Corresponding author. Tel.: +358-17-201371; fax: +358-
17-201155.
E-mail address: markku.lehtola@ktl.fi (M.J. Lehtola).
the water quality within the distribution networks. Iron
pipes are commonly used in drinking water distribution
systems. Iron corrosion products may cause taste and
color in the drinking water and may can also induce a
chemical decay of the residual chlorine [1,2].
In a drinking water distribution system, the number of
microbes in water generally increases [3]. Detachment of
bacteria from biofilms has accounted for most of the
planktonic cells present in drinking water [4]. Soft
deposits and biofilms in drinking water pipelines have
been found to consist mostly of bacteria, including
pathogenic microbes, which can also be present in
drinking water distribution networks [3,5,6].
Finnish waterworks generally clean the pipelines,
because of taste, odor and color problems. In old iron

0043-1354/$ - see front matter r 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.watres.2003.10.054
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602 M.J. Lehtola et al. / Water Research 38 (2004) 601–610

pipes the content of iron in drinking water can exceed

the indicator parameter value of 200 mg/l laid down in
the council directive 98/83/EC adopted by the council of
the European Union [7]. When there are cases of
waterborne disease outbreaks in Finland, one of the
recommended procedures, in addition to chlorination, is
flushing or pipeline internal gauging (pigging) of the
contaminated parts of the distribution networks [8].
However, cleaning of the pipes is expensive and usually
only some problematic parts of the distribution network
are cleaned, not the whole distribution network.
Data from waterworks have revealed that there is a
high diurnal variation in the consumption of drinking
water. Here we have studied if there is also a diurnal
variation in the drinking water quality, and whether pipe
cleaning would improve the drinking water quality.
Furthermore, the possible occurrence of coliform
bacteria or Norwalk-like viruses (NLV) in the soft
deposits was studied.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. The waterworks and the distribution system
The studied waterworks purified drinking water from
lake water using chemical coagulation with ferric sulfate
and rapid sand filtration. Water pH was adjusted by
liming and water was disinfected with chlorine gas
before distribution. One third of the water was treated
with activated carbon. The waterworks distributed
drinking water for 25,000 individuals.
The part of the distribution system that was studied
was located at a distance of 6 km from the waterworks
with a retention time of about 1 day. The total length of
the distribution system was 171 km. The pipeline was
built in 1966 and had never been mechanically cleaned
after its construction. The pipes were made of cast iron
(inner diameter 150 mm). In the studied area, the water
was consumed by private houses and ramifications in
pipes were about equal, pipes were not dead ends. Water
samples were taken from fire hydrants which were
flushed for 3–5 min before sampling. Samples were taken
from a common sampling point representing the
beginning of both the cleaned pipeline and the reference
line (A in Fig. 1) and from sampling points after the
cleaned part of the pipeline (B in Fig. 1) as well as from
the end of the uncleaned reference pipeline (C in Fig. 1).
The length of both the cleaned and reference pipelines
was 850 m. The pipeline cleaning was done by com-
pressed air-water flushing, i.e. compressed air and water
pulses were passed through the pipeline. Compressed air
and water were drawn into the pipeline through the fire
hydrants. The water flow during cleaning was turbulent,
and the flow rate of water pulses inside the pipeline was
3–12 m/s. It took about 1 h to clean the pipe.
B
C
A
Fig. 1. Layout of the cleaned part of the distribution system.
Dashed line (from A to B) is cleaned pipeline and solid line
(from A to C) is the reference pipeline.
2.2. Sampling
Weekly water sampling was carried out for 3 weeks
during the same working day of the week (Tuesday–
Wednesday). Samples for heterotrophic plate counts
(HPC), iron and total number of bacteria were taken five
times and those for microbially available phosphorus
(MAP) and assimilable organic carbon (AOCpotential)
three times during each sampling day. Sampling times
were chosen to represent the lowest and highest con-
sumption periods. The first 3-week sampling period ended
1 week before the pipeline cleaning (at April–May). Two
days after the cleaning (May), water samples were taken
three times every second day. The last 3-week sampling
period was done 3 months after the cleaning (August).
Soft deposit samples were collected during the
compressed air–water flushing. Samples were collected
at the beginning of the cleaning when the thickest
deposits were coming from the pipe.
2.3. Glassware
Glassware was washed with phosphate-free detergent
(Deconex; Borer Chemie AG, Zuchwil, Switzerland).
After immersion in 2% HCl solution for 2 h they were
rinsed with deionized water (Millipore, Molsheim,
France) and finally heated for 6 h at 550
C. This
procedure was done to remove all phosphorus and
carbon residuals from the glassware.
2.4. Organic carbon
Total organic carbon (TOC) was analyzed by a high
temperature combustion method with a Shimadzu 5000
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M.J. Lehtola et al. / Water Research 38 (2004) 601–610
TOC analyser (Kyoto, Japan). Assimilable organic
carbon (AOC) was analyzed by a modification [9] of
the Van der Kooij [10] method. The modification
included addition of inorganic nutrients to ensure that
only the AOC content restricted microbial growth in
phosphorus limited waters, i.e. AOC was measured as
AOCpotential [9]. Growth of Pseudomonas fluorescens was
calculated to correspond to acetate equivalents and
Spirillum NOX to oxalate equivalents.
2.5. Phosphorus
Total phosphorus (total P) was analyzed by the
ascorbic acid method according to the Finnish standards
(SFS, 3026) [11]. Absorbance was measured spectro-
photometrically (Shimadzu UV-1601, Australia) at
880 nm wavelength using a 5 cm light path. Microbially
available phosphorus (MAP) was analyzed by a
bioassay where the maximum growth of P. fluorescens
P17 (ATCC 49642) in sterilized water samples was
related to the phosphorus concentration [12]. Inorganic
salts (except phosphorus) and sodium acetate were
added to the water to ensure that the growth of test
bacteria was limited solely by phosphorus. The max-
imum microbial cell production (CFU/ml) was con-
verted to the phosphorus concentration using the
empirical yield factor of 3.73  108 CFU/mg PO4–P [12].
Turbidity was analyzed with a Hach Ratio Turbidi-
meter, Model 18900, temporal variation was analyzed in
the sampling point B. The iron concentration was
analyzed spectrophotometrically with Swan Analytical
Instruments (AG CH-8616 Riedikon/Uster) Chematest
20 spectrophotometer. Oxycon Fe reagent (Spectro-
quant 14761 Merck, Dramstad) was used to determine
dissolved iron as described in the manual. The content
of free chlorine was analyzed with Palintest Micro 1000
chlorometer (UK), the test being based on the DPD
method. DPD No.1 test tablets (Palintest, UK) were
used in the test.
2.6. Microbial numbers
The total number of bacteria in drinking water was
analyzed by an acridine orange direct counting method
based on the method of Hobbie et al. [13]. Bacteria were
counted with an Olympus BH-2 epifluorescence micro-
scope (Olympus Optical co., Tokyo, Japan) using an
eyepiece micrometer (Graticules Ltd., Tonbridge, UK).
Heterotrophic bacteria (HPC) were analyzed by a
spread plating method on R2A-agar (Difco) [14].
R2A-agar plates were incubated for 7 days at 22
C
before colony counting. Total coliforms in drinking
water were analyzed according to the Finnish standard
[15] by a membrane filtration method using LesEndo
agar (Difco). Water samples of 100 ml were filtered
through Millipore HA membrane filter with a pore size
603
of 0.45 mm (Millipore Co., Bedford, USA). The plates
were incubated 24 h at 37
C before colony counting.
Soft deposit samples collected during the pipe
cleaning were analyzed for total coliforms and Nor-
walk-like viruses. For total coliforms, 2 ml of the deposit
was filtered on the membrane and analyzed as water
samples. For viral analysis, the RNA was extracted from
the deposits and the presence of NLVs was detected by
RT-PCR and hybridization as described for stool
samples in Maunula et al. [16].
2.7. Statistical analyses
Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated with
SPSS version of 10.1.3 (SPSS Inc.) and Excel 97
(Microsoft) programs. Statistical differences were tested
with one-way analysis of variance and Tukey’s multiple
comparison test (significance level ap0:05) and inde-
pendent samples T-test, analyses were done by SPSS for
Windows version 10.1.3 program (SPSS Inc.).
3. Results
The quality of drinking water leaving the waterworks
is presented in Table 1. The temperature of the raw
water increased in the summer, which affected the water
quality, demanding an increase in the required chlorine
dose (Table 1).
There was a diurnal variation in the consumption of
the drinking water in the studied network. Fig. 2 shows
an example of the water flow during 1 day. The variation
in diurnal consumption was also similar on the other
days. Drinking water consumption was highest at 9 p.m.
and lowest at 4 a.m. The maximum water flow in the
studied area was approximately 28.7 m3/h and minimum
14.6 m3/h. Five daily water samples were taken, repre-
senting different consumption periods (Fig. 2). The
sampling times were at 4 a.m., 7 a.m., 1 p.m., 6 p.m. and
9 p.m. (Fig 2). AOC and MAP were analyzed from the
samples taken at 1 p.m., 9 p.m. and 4 a.m.
No coliform bacteria or Norwalk-like viruses were
found from the soft deposits collected during the pipe
cleaning. Coliform bacteria (not Esherichia coli) were
only recovered once from the drinking water samples.
This positive sample was taken three months after the
pipe cleaning from the reference pipeline. The average
number of heterotrophic bacteria in soft deposits was
217,100719,400 CFU/ml (n ¼ 4).
3.1. Water quality in pipeline before cleaning
Water consumption rate affected the water quality in
the distribution network. The concentration of iron and
turbidity of drinking water was highest at 9 p.m. (A1, B1
and C1 in Fig. 3, B1 in Fig. 4). The differences in iron
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Table 1
Characteristics of water leaving waterworks (average7standard deviation, n ¼ 3)

Before cleaning 1 week after the cleaning 3 months after the cleaning


Temperature ( C) 3.771.3 7.470.2 18.570.6
Chlorine (mg/l) 0.3470.02 0.4270.09 0.5870.01
Iron (mg/l) 0.0970.03 0.0570.02 0.0170.00
Turbidity (FTU) 0.1670.01 0.1170.01 0.1070.05
HPC (CFU/ml) 577 14724 26736
Total bacteria/ml 64400728200 71400711600 77500712700
Total P (mg/l) 272 170 o1
MAP (mg/l) 0.2270.04 0.3170.09 0.1970.10
TOC (mg/l) 2.070.1 1.970.1 2.270.2
AOCpotential (mg/l) 104715 8974 8871

Symbols: AOCpotential: assimilable organic carbon analyzed with addition of inorganic nutrients, MAP: microbially available
phosphorus, TOC: total organic carbon.

tion of the water quality in reference point C than any

water flow

improvement in the water quality at sampling point B.

In the cleaned pipeline, the content of MAP decreased
below the level of the water leaving the waterworks.
After cleaning at sampling point B, there was no
21 m3/h

longer any detectable diurnal variation in the water

04:00 07:00 13:00 18:00 21:00
time
Fig. 2. Diurnal fluctuation in water flow in the studied area.
concentrations were statistically significant only at the
sampling point B (po0:05) (Fig. 3). Turbidity was
analyzed only at sampling point B, where differences
were significant (po0:01; except at 7 a.m.) (B1 in Fig. 4).
At other sampling points, especially at the reference
point C, there was a great variation in the iron
concentrations (C1 in Fig. 3). There were no significant
changes in the numbers of heterotrophic bacteria at
different sampling times (Fig. 5). The number of total
bacteria was highest at 9 p.m. (Fig. 6).
When comparing the water quality at sampling points
B and C, there were no differences in microbiological
parameters, but at C the content of iron (p ¼ 0:01) and
content of AOC (p ¼ 0:05) were higher (Table 2).
3.2. Effect of pipe cleaning on the water quality
quality (B2 in Figs. 3–6). At reference point C, the
content of iron was highest at 9 p.m. (p ¼ 0:05 for
6 p.m.), as were the numbers of bacteria, i.e. the diurnal
variation was similar to that before cleaning (C2 in Figs.
3, 5 and 6).
Three months after the pipe cleaning, the water
temperature increased during summer in waterworks
up to 18.5
C, and in the distribution network up to
12.2
C (at B) and 15.1
C (at C) (Table 2). This increase
in the temperature was reflected by an increase in the
microbial numbers in distribution network. However,
the increase in HPC was significantly higher at reference
sampling point C than at cleaned sampling point B
(Table 2, Fig. 2). There also was an increase in the total
bacteria at both sampling points, however, more at
sampling point C (Table 2). On average there were no
changes in the content of iron at sampling point B, but
at sampling point C the content of iron increased up to
the level prevailing during the first sampling period
(Table 2, Fig. 3). The concentrations of iron, HPC and
total bacteria were highest at 9 p.m. (B3 and C3 in
Figs. 4–6).
3.3. Relationships between physical, chemical and
microbiological water parameters

One week after the cleaning, there were differences in
water quality between the sampling point B and
reference point C with the concentrations of MAP,
HPC and total number of bacteria being significantly
higher at the reference point C (Table 2). The difference
in microbial numbers was caused more by the deteriora-
In all data, HPC correlated positively with water
temperature (r ¼ 0:74; p ¼ 0:000; n ¼ 87), total bacteria
(r ¼ 0:36; p ¼ 0:000; n ¼ 135), turbidity (r ¼ 0:53;
p ¼ 0:000; n ¼ 60) and content of iron (r ¼ 0:42; p ¼
0:000; n ¼ 135), and negatively with the content of
chlorine (r ¼ 0:34; p ¼ 0:000; n ¼ 121). The content of
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Fig. 3. Diurnal variations in the concentrations of iron in drinking water taken from different sampling sites. A1, B1, C1: before
cleaning, A2, B2, C2: one week after cleaning, A3, B3, C3: three months after cleaning. Time is shown in the legend.

Fig. 4. Diurnal variations in water turbidity in the cleaned pipeline. B1: before cleaning, B2: one week after cleaning, B3: three months
after cleaning. Time is shown in the legend.

iron correlated with turbidity (r ¼ 0:83; p ¼ 0:000;
n ¼ 62), MAP (r ¼ 0:45; p ¼ 0:000; n ¼ 80) and AOC
(r ¼ 0:42; p ¼ 0:000; n ¼ 80) and total bacteria
(r ¼ 0:33; p ¼ 0:000; n ¼ 135).
3.4. The effect of soft deposits on drinking water quality
The data was divided into the periods with high or
low content of iron in the water. In all data, 10% of
samples had iron concentrations over 0.40 mg/l. In this
data the iron concentrations correlated with AOC
(r ¼ 0:73; p ¼ 0:007; n ¼ 12), total bacteria (r ¼ 0:69; p ¼
0:004; n ¼ 15) and MAP (r ¼ 0:63; p ¼ 0:027; n ¼ 12)
(Fig. 7). In these samples the contents of MAP (0.41 mg/l,
p ¼ 0:001), AOC (125 mg/l, p ¼ 0:207), HPC (4545 CFU/
ml, p ¼ 0:017) and the total number of bacteria (110,000
bacteria/ml, p ¼ 0:086) were on average higher than in
the samples with the iron content of 0.40 mg/l or less
(MAP 0.26 mg/l, AOC 84 mg/l, HPC 1374 CFU/ml, total
number of bacteria 85,600 bacteria/ml).
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Fig 5. Diurnal variations in the number of heterotrophic plate counts in drinking water taken from different sampling sites. A1, B1,
C1: before cleaning, A2, B2, C2: one week after cleaning, A3, B3, C3: three months after cleaning. Time is shown in the legend.

Fig 6. Diurnal variations in total number of bacteria in drinking water taken from different sampling sites. A1, B1, C1: before
cleaning, A2, B2, C2: one week after cleaning, A3, B3, C3: three months after cleaning. Time is shown in the legend.

4. Discussion Since there are seasonal changes in water quality, we

In Finnish waterworks, an increase in the iron content
and the turbidity of drinking water are the most
common reasons for initiation of pipeline cleaning.
They are also the main reasons for consumer com-
plaints. Since it is an expensive technique, pipe cleaning
is restricted to only the real problem parts of the
distribution system.
also used a reference pipeline in our study to control for
the natural changes in water quality. However, some
differences were noted in the studied pipelines. AOC and
iron concentrations were higher in the reference line, and
temperature was also slightly higher in the reference
pipeline.
Before cleaning, the water quality was lowest at
9 p.m., when the water consumption was also highest.
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Table 2
Water quality in the studied pipelines before and after the cleaning of the pipelines (average7standard deviation, n ¼ 5)

Before cleaning 1 week after 3 months after

B1 C1 B2 C2 B3 C3

Temperature n.a. n.a. 5.570.3 6.870.4 12.270.5 15.170.4

Chlorine (mg/l) 0.0870.02 0.0870.05 0.0570.02 0.0570.01 0.0470.01 0.0370.02
Iron (mg/l) 0.1570.06 0.4670.45 0.1370.02 0.2270.24 0.1570.15 0.4070.34
Turbidity (FTU) 0.3070.09 0.2870.04 0.3070.05 0.4070.16 0.5770.52 0.3870.07
TOC (mg/l) 2.771.2 2.971.7 1.870.1 1.870.1 2.070.1 2.170.1
AOCpotential (mg/l) 72729 1957179 72717 97740 91739 79738
Total P (mg/l) 473 573 170 273 070 170
MAP (mg/l) 0.2870.14 0.4370.26 0.2470.06 0.3570.14 0.2070.09 0.2370.12
HPC (CFU/ml) 5657189 5657736 4607148 11437596 29367838 632073299
Total bacteria/ml 81600735100 72000736600 78500721800 101900731900 95000731800 102200736600

Symbols: AOCpotential: assimilable organic carbon analyzed with addition of inorganic nutrients, HPC: heterotrophic plate counts
MAP: microbially available phosphorus, n.a.: not analyzed, TOC: total organic carbon.
Statistical significance between cleaned pipeline and reference pipeline po0:05; po0:01; po0:001:

Fig. 7. Relationships of iron and AOC (a), MAP (b) and total bacteria (c) during the iron peak episode (concentration of iron in water
>0.40 mg/l)

The differences were not always statistically significant,
as a result of occasional peaks in the parameters studied.
However, we observed that the peaks were more
frequent at 9 p.m. The peaks may have originated from
old soft deposits in pipelines being disturbed by the
maximal flow rate of water.
When we started this study, we presumed that the
increase in the content of iron and turbidity in water
would be attributable to the release of soft deposits into
bulk water. During the study we detected several iron
peaks in the drinking water with a simultaneous increase
in the concentrations of nutrients and bacteria, the most
extensive increase being in the HPC and MAP concen-
trations. The concentrations of MAP and AOC were on
average more than 50% higher during the iron peak
episode (iron >0.40 mg/l). During these high iron
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episodes, the content of iron correlated strongly with
AOC, MAP and number of bacteria, which indicates
that the release of soft deposits did affect the water
quality. Previous studies have shown that soft deposits
contain high amounts of iron, organic matter, phos-
phorus and microbial biomass [3,17]. Also, we found
high numbers of bacteria in deposits collected during
compressed air–water flushing, but we did not analyze
the chemical composition of the deposits. However, our
results show that soft deposits are able to release
microbially available organic carbon and phosphorus
into bulk water when the water flow rate changed.
Immediately after cleaning, the content of MAP
decreased below the level in the waterworks, which
shows that during distribution MAP had accumulated in
the pipelines.
The compounds usually found in iron corrosion scales
are goethite (a-FeOOH), lepidocrocite (g-FeOOH) and
magnetite (Fe3O4) [18]. Phosphorus is known to react
with iron and to form FeOOH–PO4 complexes and
FePO4, but these compounds are redox sensitive and can
release phosphorus under anoxic conditions [19–21]. The
chemistry of phosphorus and iron may represent one
reason for the MAP accumulation in the distribution
system. Also, Power and Nagy [22] noted an increase in
the content of phosphorus in their studied drinking
water distribution system. There is a risk that this iron
bound phosphorus is released in a bioavailable form
under anoxic conditions or when water flow changes and
thus enhance microbial growth. Previously it was found
that in phosphorus limited waters, even a very minor
increase in the phosphorus concentration can strongly
increase microbial growth [23,24]. In previous studies we
have shown that microbial growth in drinking water
produced in the waterworks studied is limited by
phosphorus.
It is noteworthy that in the cleaned pipeline there was
no observable diurnal variation in the iron concentra-
tion, in contrast to the uncleaned line. Microbial growth
decreased significantly immediately after cleaning. Dur-
ing the summer, the concentration of heterotrophic
bacteria in drinking water increased 5 times higher in the
cleaned pipeline and was 11 times higher in the
uncleaned pipeline, from the concentrations before
cleaning (Table 2, Fig. 5). Three months after the pipe
cleaning other improvements in water quality were
minor.
In this study we found that the increase in tempera-
ture during the summer affected strongly the microbial
quality of drinking water. Also, Niquette et al. [25]
found that the biomass in drinking water was highest in
summer when the water temperature increased. Part of
the difference in microbial numbers between the cleaned
and reference pipelines can be explained by the slight
difference (1–3
C) in water temperature between these
pipelines. Another, probably more important reason for
the difference in microbial numbers after the cleaning is
the removal of nutrient rich deposits, which may have
decreased the potential growth of microbes in the
distribution system. The increase in temperature also
decreased the content of free residual chlorine. Water-
works try to eliminate this problem by increasing the
chlorine dose, but the doses are generally not high
enough to prevent the microbial growth throughout the
entire networks. LeChevallier et al. [26] found that even
a free chlorine concentration as high as 4 mg/l was not
enough to eliminate biofilm microbes on iron pipes.
Drinking water quality in the studied area is affected
not only by the pipeline just before the sampling point,
but also the distribution network (6 km) before the
studied area. Release of the soft deposits to drinking
water requires continuous dissolving/accumulation of
iron, sedimentation of organic matter and growth/
accumulation of microbial biomass on the inner surface
of pipelines. Several factors can affect the formation of
biofilms and deposition of particulate matter in dis-
tribution system. The formation of biofilms is affected
by microbial nutrients, pipe materials, disinfectants,
microbial quality of water and hydraulic regime
[1,27,28]. Gauthier et al. [17] listed the origins of
particulate matter in a distribution network: incomplete
removal of particles in the waterworks, release of fine
material from treatment filters, precipitation of metal
oxides or calcium carbonates, post-flocculation, biolo-
gical activity and corrosion. Previously it was found that
after pipe cleaning, new deposits developed rapidly
inside the pipeline. In that study, 1 year after cleaning,
the microbial numbers in new deposits were almost
equal with those in old deposits which had developed
over decades [3]. Also our study showed that the
improving effect of the pipe cleaning seemed to be fairly
transient, especially for the concentration of iron and
turbidity. This is probably due to the rapid growth of
new deposits.
Development of new soft deposits may be affected by
the possible release of the deposits from the pipeline
before the cleaned area and would be slower if the entire
distribution network were cleaned. Usually soft deposits
accumulate in certain parts of the distribution system
(low flow at night, dead-ends, reservoirs) [17]. Cleaning
is not the only solution for elimination of sediments
from the distribution system, e.g. improving of water
hydraulics may decrease the accumulation of soft
deposits. Cleaning of the pipeline would be necessary
especially in cases of contamination of drinking water.
We also studied the soft deposits for presence of
Norwalk-like viruses (NLV) and coliform bacteria. In
previous studies, high concentrations of coliforms have
been reported to be present in old deposits in drinking
water pipelines [3,5]. In Finland, most of the identified
waterborne epidemics in 1998–1999 were attributable to
caliciviruses (NLV) [8]. There are some concerns that
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biofilms may have a potential to harbor enteric viruses
[6]. In this study we found no coliform bacteria or NLV
in the soft deposits. It should be noted that no
waterborne disease epidemics have occurred in the
geographical areas studied.
5. Conclusions
We found that in old distribution networks, the water
consumption rate could affect the water quality.
Concentrations of iron, bacteria and turbidity in
drinking water were highest at 9 p.m., when the water
consumption was also highest. This may be the reason
for the release of soft deposits in the pipeline. The
release of soft deposits into drinking water increased the
concentrations of iron, MAP and AOC, indicating that
these deposits are reservoirs for microbial nutrients.
Cleaning of the pipeline decreased the diurnal variation
in drinking water quality and decreased the microbial
growth in the distribution system. No NLV or coliform
bacteria were found in the soft deposits.
Acknowledgements
This study was supported by National Technology
Agency (TEKES), project number 40230/01. We give
special thanks to the staff of the Laboratory of
Environmental Microbiology in the National Public
Health Institute and in the studied waterworks. We also
want to thank Carl-Henrik von Bonsdorff and Leena
Maunula in University of Helsinki, Haartman Institute
for virus analyses.
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