Tests on Oily Servants Microbes

Conducted by:

Deborah Carr, PhD
Research Associate Professor
Biological Sciences
Texas Tech University
 

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Microbial Consortium Analysis
Summary

Your consortium is a diverse mix of bacteria bringing many functions and that enhance soil health and fertility. It would appear that many of the bacteria in your consortium were isolated from agricultural land having had sludge or wastewater amendments since they contain specific capabilities for degrading agricultural pesticides such as Atrazine and DDT. Though DDT is no longer applied to crops in the U.S. it has some residual actions in soils that persist for decades. Atrazine is a compound under scrutiny worldwide for elimination due to over application and its ability to persist and contaminate groundwater. Pharmaceutical degradation is of increased interest worldwide and your consortium has some capabilities in this area. You may find people interested in specifically remediating for these compounds.  At the point in time of the sequencing you had done, it appears in this analysis that your consortium has some capacity for hydrocarbon degradation including remediation of oil spills, though you could enhance this capability with the addition of some other specific bacteria with these functional capabilities. In the presence of an oil spill with non-oil bound carbon and nitrogen in low abundance, your consortium composition will shift to a point where the species most capable of competing for nutrients by scavenging them from the hydrocarbons will become much more prevalent and would then be reflected in the predicted functional analysis.  Your consortium also contains a good mix of bacteria and functional process generally related to soil health. Functional capabilities for degrading organic matter, leaf litter, and mulch are abundant in the carbohydrate pathways as well as the enzymatic and amino acid pathways. These processes will be capable of providing nutrient recycling and micro-nutrients important for restoring fertility to impacted soils. 

An Analysis of 
Biological Oxygen Demand Response for Microbial Consortium Treatment
To Sewage Spill in Colorado River

Conclusions

We conclude that the addition of the Oily Servants, LLC, microbial consortium to the Colorado River near Colorado City, TX as remedial action for a sewage spill will have no deleterious effect on the dissolved oxygen concentrations in the river water to a level to cause fish kills of harmful algal blooms. Seasonality and water temperature may guide treatment levels for additions of the consortium. The data in this report indicate that BOD increases with the addition of higher concentrations of microbial consortium so if dissolved oxygen levels are the primary concern treatment should be at 0.5% microbial consortium levels. If there is an indication from other studies not performed by this lab, that the consortium is effective at reducing excess nutrients introduced by a sewage spill into the river, the addition of higher consortium concentrations may be warranted in cooler water temperatures. Close monitoring of dissolved oxygen levels in the river if treating at higher microbial consortium concentrations at warmer water temperatures is recommended to avoid reducing oxygen levels below 3 mg/L.