Pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs) and endocrine disrupting substances (EDS) have emerged as compounds of concern, particularly when present in raw water for drinking water production. Membrane filtration and especially nanofiltration (NF) is a promising technique for the removal of these emerging contaminants from surface water. In this study biological filtration is used as pretreatment for ultrafiltration (UF) and NF, and each filtration process is studied alone and in combination with biological filtration. The overall goals are twofold, to study the removal of selected contaminants and to assess membrane fouling at the same time. Compounds investigated are the herbicide atrazine, the anti-epileptic carbamazepine, the insect repellent DEET, the anti-inflammatories ibuprofen and naproxen, and the detergent degradation byproduct nonylphenol. Biological filtration prior to membrane filtration has the potential to remove or minimize the foulant materials but may also be capable of removing selected contaminants. Surface water from a local river was passed through a roughing filter prior to being used in these experiments. Initial results were mainly as expected, namely low removals of contaminants with UF and high removals with NF. Biological filtration showed some contaminant removal but results need to be confirmed. Even with a preceding roughing filter NF can not be operated for any length of time due to severe fouling thus making pretreatment necessary. Preliminary experiments showed a reduction in fouling of the NF unit when employing biofiltration. UF showed good turbidity removal and some TOC removal. Includes 14 references, tables, figures.