The end of the COVID pandemic can’t come quick enough!  There is finally light at the end of the COVID tunnel with at least some semblance of normality returning to our worlds.  The vaccination systems in the States and Provinces are picking up speed.  The North East Biosolids & Residuals Association (NEBRA) is daring to hope for an in person conference in the Fall!  But something we don’t want to leave behind is wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) which has proven to be a valuable tool for detecting the SARS-CoV-2 virus, its variants and other viruses to come.  Afterall, water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs) are in the public health business.    

In defense against COVID, WRRFs from all around the world have been testing wastewater – at their treatment facilities and out in their collection systems – in the hopes of providing important information that public health professionals can use to ward off outbreaks.  The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) has established a National Wastewater Surveillance System (Wastewater Surveillance Data Reporting and Analytics | Water-related Topics | Healthy Water | CDC].  CDC has partnered with the Water Environment Federation to develop and manage a nation-wide WBE network [CDC to Expand Use of Wastewater-Based Disease Surveillance With Water Environment Federation (wef.org)]

WBE works as a warning system for viruses – even the new strains of COVID that have been identified.   Burlington, Vermont, has been participating in WBE sampling for its community and detected an increase in new strains of COVID in early February.  Burlington could identify where in the sewer system the hits were detected which informed decisions to quarantine infected persons so as to limit the spread.

Some of the initial drawbacks of testing wastewater in search of the SARS-CoV-2 virus RNA (ribonucleic acid) included the time it took to get the results.  The costs are also a concern for WRRFs.  WBE improvements in this area include rapid COVID in wastewater tests (Hach Co. has one that it says gets results in 90 minutes).  Robots have been developed to automate some of the steps in the laboratory, like concentrating the samples, which significantly speeds up the process allowing a lot more samples to be processed. 

Some communities have gotten really creative in using WBE in conjunction with public health and safety information systems to get the word out about COVID infections in their neighborhoods.  In Pueblo, Colorado, for example, local official are using Reverse 911 to notify residents of spikes in virus being detected in the sewer system.  The State of Colorado has compiled all the WBE data from participating municipalities into a cool data dashboard by community.

More and more, public health officials are finding wastewater to be a tremendous resource in detecting and containing viruses and are calling it a powerful tool.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is investing monies in the form of grants to further improve the efficacy of WBE, including Cornell University and the University of Louisville. Researchers are also looking at sampling the wastewater solids where the virus strands end up eventually, finding the higher concentrations in the solids improves detection. 

Research continues on health risks associated with COVID in wastewater but researchers continue to find little risk in contracting COVID from handling wastewater solids and residuals.   For more information and resources on COVID, see NEBRA’s webpage.