Filters comprised of sand and Zero Valent Iron hold promise as tools to mitigate risk posed by oocysts.

Irrigation water contaminated by human fecal material may elevate the risk of produce contamination with the enteric parasite Oocysts of are resistant to commonly used disinfectants and a method of removing from irrigation water would mitigate this risk. We evaluated zero valent iron (ZVI) sand filtration as one such method. We sought to determine if sand filters containing ZVI outperformed those without ZVI. We first evaluated the abundant poultry parasites , and as surrogates for . We determined if a miniaturized gravity fed ZVI-sand filter, scaled to evaluate scarce supplies of oocysts, provided useful information about the performance of larger filtration systems. Filters were inoculated with oocysts, rinsed, and the resulting filtrate examined microscopically for oocysts. We performed experiments to measure the effect of varying ZVI concentrations, repeated filter use, simulated agricultural water, and oocyst size and condition. We then compared the performance of mini filters to that of larger, gravity-fed pool filters and found that ZVI-sand filtration was far more effective at removing spp. from water when compared to sand filtration, at both scales. Sand mini filters retained 13-54 % of oocysts, and pool filters retained 82 %, but when combined with 50 % (mini filter) or 35 % (pool filter) /v ZVI, mini filters retained 89-99 % of oocysts and pool filters retained >99 %. The effectiveness of the mini filters increased with increasing ZVI concentration, and the addition of ZVI far outweighed the influence of any other measured variable. We then performed experiments including , which provided similar results to those utilizing ; 59 % of inoculated oocysts were retained in sand mini filters, and 97 % in mini filters composed of 35 % /v ZVI. In sum, ZVI is highly effective in removing oocysts from water and is a useful surrogate for to assess filtration. ZVI-sand filtration shows promise as a tool to mitigate the risk of contamination of irrigation water. Further studies should evaluate the performance of ZVI-sand in pressurized fast filtration systems under a range of field conditions.