Dr. Mark D. Sobsey, the inventor of the Compartment Bag Test (CBT), was a member of the External Peer Review Workgroup that provided technical and scientific review for a US EPA article, Review of Coliphages as Possible Indicators of Fecal Contamination for Ambient Water Quality.
The article is a literature review of the scientific information that EPA will evaluate to develop coliphage-based ambient water quality criteria for the protection of swimmers. It generally indicates that coliphages are equally good indicators of fecal contamination as EPA’s currently recommended criteria for E. coli and enterococci. In addition, coliphages are better indicators of viruses in treated wastewater than bacteria.