The quality of packaged ice sold in retail establishments is not uniformly regulated, and its cleanliness and safety have not been recently evaluated. This investigation examined the physical, chemical, and microbiological characteristics of 18 brands of packaged ice purchased at Iowa stores. Twenty-two ice samples were melted under controlled conditions and portions were analyzed for selected analytes established as primary and secondary drinking water standards by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Only one sample exceeded a primary health standard under the Safe Drinking Water Act, and that sample contained Klebsiella pneumoniae, a member of the total coliform group of bacteria. Several samples of ice manufactured in convenience stores had heterotrophic plate counts which exceeded the recommendation (<500 CFU/ml) established by the Packaged Ice Association, and none of the manufacturers met the minimum package labeling recommendations of that organization. Ice produced in convenience stores was of consistently poorer microbiological quality than ice produced by major commercial manufacturers. While ice consumption does not represent an immediate threat to personal or public health, the potential for disease transmission exists in an industry which is voluntarily self-regulated.

This article discusses an episode of mustiness that was extremely resistant to treatment processes, which occurred on the Cedar River in Iowa during June through July, 1961. A study was done on the chemical characteristics of the metabolic products of actinomycetes isolated and cultured from the Cedar River during the 1961 period of musty taste. The difficulty of analysis, effect of cultural conditions, isolation procedures and actinomycete‐produced substances are all discussed, along with neutral‐fraction characteristics, further purification, constituents of eluate, and infrared analysis. An illustration of the similarity between organic materials of river water and extracted actinomycete metabolites is provided in a comparison of the infrared spectra of an extract of musty Cedar River water, and an extract of the laboratory‐cultured actinomycetes.

Summary Levels of copper toxicity have been established in distilled water using the distilled water suitability test. It is shown that levels of copper, toxic by the distilled water suitability test, are not toxic to the test organism, Aerobacter aerogenes, in sterile milk or to the normal bacterial flora of a raw milk sample. It is the contention of this paper that the distilled water suitability test is an unrealistically severe yardstick of distilled water quality for use in routine milk and water laboratories.