Because of the geographical location, excellent professional staff and technical facilities, our islands provide the best option to carry out the proposed research. Because of higher annual temperature, people may spend more time in direct contact with water. In addition, since there are few sewage and water treatment plants adequately functioning, there is a real need for the development of a rapid, easy, inexpensive and accurate method for assessing tropical water biological quality. Currently used bacterial indicators of fecal contamination have been found to be inadequate in the tropics. This is due to the presence of these indicators as part of the resident microflora in these environments.
Coliphages seem to be excellent alternate indicators of the biological quality of waters.
If a correlation can be established between the presence of coliphages and the presence of fecal contamination we will more safely be able to determine the possible impact these waters have on public health. Current water biological quality standards also need to be reevaluated in order to develop a more reliable indicator more specifically designed for tropical areas. A great deal of effort is being placed in improving the biological quality of waters in tropical areas without taking into consideration the autochthonous nature of coliforms and fecal coliforms. It will also show if coliphages can be used as an alternate indicator of fecal contamination. Future goals will also include setting the standards for future work on DNA fingerprint analyses to identify and differentiate between strains isolated from Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands which will further develop a databank with the DNA fingerprints of E. coli isolates which will be made available to any researcher involved in water quality analysis in the tropics.