e been made easy with the use of indicator organisms. Indicator organisms give researchers the benefit of making good assumptions on the presence of pathogens before the pathogens multiply in distressing numbers. For a microbe to be accepted as an indicator organism, it must be present in human feces in large amounts so much so that the presence of these bacteria in a given sample would already point to human fecal contamination. It was reasoned that the largest amount of pathogens was present in human feces, and thus, the indication of the entry of large amounts of human waste, from healthy persons or not, already indicate a great risk (NCSU). Also, indicator organisms must be present wherever and whenever the pathogen organisms are present. More importantly, these indicator organisms must be easily detectable in samples and tests for the measurement of their numbers must be simple enough (Tortora et al. 1995).
             Coliform bacteria fit all the requirements and are even safe to handle in the laboratory. Coliform bacteria are gram-negative and non-spore/endospore forming bacteria, which include aerobes and facultative anaerobes, and when incubated at 35∘C with lactose in the media, will evolve gas (CO2) within 48 hrs, like Escherichia, Klebsiella, Citrobacter and Enterobacter (NCSU). They are also prevalent in the colon and intestinal tract (but not all groups are present) of warm-blooded mammals, including man (Anderson et al. 1998). They are also related to pathogenic bacteria in that a large number of these coliform bacteria usually imply the presence of some pathogenic bacteria (Frank). These characteristics of coliform bacteria already suffice the conditions outlined for these organisms to be classified as indicator organisms. They occur in large amounts in human feces, in fact, humans excrete billions of these coliforms (called fecal coliforms). They are present whenever and wherever the pathogen organisms are pres...