Nitrifying and Denitrifying Bacterial Communities in Advanced N-Removal Onsite Wastewater Treatment Systems and an N- Removing Wastewater Treatment Plant

Advanced nitrogen(N)-removing, onsite wastewater treatment systems (OWTS; i.e. septic systems) are being used to lower anthropological N inputs to groundwater and N sensitive areas such as estuaries and coastal ponds. While these technologies have been in use for over two decades, there is not a clear understanding of the microbes controlling N transformations within these systems. These samples give a description of the nitrifying and denitrifying microbial communities within advanced N-removing OWTS. We investigated how these community patterns differ between three advanced OWTS designs, how they change though time and space, how they affect system performance, and how they compare to samples collected at a biological nitrogen removing wastewater treatment plant.