Biological filtration is resilient to wildfire ash-associated organic carbon threats to drinking water treatment

Elevated/altered levels of dissolved organic matter (DOM) in water can be challenging to treat after wildfire. Biologically-mediated treatment removes some DOM; its ability to remove elevated/altered post-fire dissolved organic carbon (DOC) resulting from wildfire ash was therefore investigated. The treatment of low, medium, and high wildfire ash-amended source waters by bench-scale biofilters was evaluated in duplicate. Turbidity and DOC were …