Screening, isolation and identification of microorganisms from petrochemical contaminated environment

Soil is comprised of minerals, soil organic matter, water and air. The composition and proportion of these components greatly influence soil physical properties like structure and porosity. Soil bacteria and fungi play pivotal roles in various biogeochemical cycles and are responsible for the cycling of organic compounds. The view on the microbiological safety of drinking water is changing. The demand for the total absence of any pathogenic organism is no longer significant in light of the new pathogens, some of which are capable of growing in drinking water systems. This is mainly due to many pollutants that are present at much higher concentrations in groundwater than they are in most contaminated surface supplies. In order to determine the microbes, soil and water samples were collected from petrochemical industry, Eleme, Port-Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria, for microbiological analysis. This was carried out by the isolation, assessment and characterization of the isolated organisms. The highest bacterial counts was determined in soil sample 1 (SS1) and water sample 4 (WS4) with microbial loads of 1.48 x 10^6 cfu/mL and 9.40 x 10^5 cfu/mL and the lowest count was found in soil sample 2 (SS2) and water sample 2 (WS2) with microbial load 2.90 x 105 cfu/mL and 3.67 x 10^4 cfu/mL. The highest fungal counts was determined in soil sample 2 (SS2) and water sample1 (WS1) with microbial loads of 1.76 x 10^6 cfu/mL and 2.17 x 10^6 cfu/mL and the least colonies was in soil sample 1 (SS1) and water sample 2 (WS2) with microbial counts of 1.75 x 10^5 cfu/mL and 4.30 x 10^4 cfu/mL. The results present that the presence of these microbes can be linked to the prehistory of the effects or contamination of surface and underground water in this region and could leads to water-borne diseases.