PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island is sampling its wastewater for signs of COVID-19 in hopes health officials will get early warnings about where and how the virus is spreading and be able to mobilize resources faster.
The R.I. Department of Health began participating in a program in June that is funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease and Control Prevention at a cost of $246,808. The program, called the National Wastewater Surveillance System, is funded via a cooperative agreement until July of 2022.
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The CDC said the testing is aimed at determining virus trends, while also serving as an early-warning detection system.
Joseph Wendelken, RIDOH spokesman, said health officials have sampled wastewater at undisclosed locations, but the analysis of the samplings has not been concluded.
In one case, Wendelken said, samples were taken from where sewage flows into the Fields Point Wastewater Treatment Facility in Providence, the state’s largest water treatment facility.
“We are still doing a statistical analysis – comparing the results from the sewage shed area with the positivity data we have for that same area for traditional testing,” said Wendelken, noting that results have been consistent with traditional PCR testing.
The CDC and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services started the program during the pandemic last year as a public health tool for wastewater surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 and other diseases.
Other states have been conducting wastewater testing, including Massachusetts, New York, Ohio and Colorado.
Brian Katzowitz, spokesman for the CDC, said the program provides state and local health officials with information regarding COVID-19 infections levels in communities. He noted that public health agencies have used wastewater data to forecast changes in the virus for hospital utilization, providing additional time to mobilize resources in preparation for increasing cases.
“Because increases in wastewater generally occur four to six days before corresponding increases in clinical cases, wastewater surveillance can serve as an early-warning system for the emergence, or reemergence, of COVID-19 in a community,” he said. “State and local public health departments use [wastewater surveillance] data to project a potential spike of new cases in areas with rising levels of SARS-CoV-2 wastewater, and to make decisions about mobile testing and vaccination sites.”
Katzowitz said while wastewater surveillance is not meant to replace traditional case-based surveillance, it does have some advantages.
“Since pretty much everyone in the U.S. uses a toilet every day, sewage surveillance data does not rely on health care-seeking behavior and access,” he said. “It can also pick up on asymptomatic infections, which may be missed if people don’t know they’re sick and don’t seek testing.”
Annemarie Beardsworth, spokesperson for the state Department of Health, said a wastewater pilot project was implemented by the state in 2020 aimed at optimizing laboratory methodology for detecting COVID in wastewater samples collected in various locations in Rhode Island. Now the initiative has evolved into a tool to study and track the presence of the virus.
Samples collected from wastewater are being analyzed for COVID-19 and other diseases by the R.I. State Health Laboratory, she said.
“Wastewater surveillance provides complementary information on the spread of COVID-19 that does not rely on testing individuals,” said Beardsworth. “In the long term, it is expected that wastewater samples will also be used to determine what variants are circulating in the state.”
Bill Patenaude, a principal engineer at the R.I. Department of Environmental Management, said testing is being conducted at some of the state’s major municipal wastewater treatment plants at no charge to each facility. He noted that DEM is responsible for regulating the state’s wastewater facilities.
Patenaude said the testing process involves collecting samples from the 120 million gallons of daily commercial, industrial, and residential sewage processed by the treatment plants.
As for its toxicity, Patenaude said when the virus enters a wastewater stream it is no longer active or a threat to the environment. The sampling involves capturing remnants of the virus, or viral RNA, in a container for shipment to a lab for analysis, he said.
Wendelken said the virus cannot be meaningfully transmitted in wastewater, as bacteria in the sewage break it down, but pieces of its DNA remain, which the state can analyze through testing.
Michael Healey, a spokesman for DEM, said that DEM’s role has been to assist RIDOH with making connections to the state’s wastewater treatment facility operators, along with the Narragansett Bay Commission.
Healey said that other states have already began conducting wastewater testing, such as Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio.
The detection of COVID-19 in Boston area wastewater reached record levels in December, trending upwards since October, per data tracked by Cambridge-based, Biobot Analytics, a wastewater epidemiology company.
The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority said that its southern region for wastewater testing detected the record number of 2,574 on Dec. 23 for viral RNA, way up from Nov. 30 when the viral RNA recorded was 864.
Biobot Analytics, which samples three to seven times a week, and reports its findings to the MWRA, has tracked COVID-19 trends from the Deer Island Sewage Treatment facility since the pandemic began. The state has expanded wastewater testing to municipalities outside of the Deer Island site, to monitor COVID-19 activity.
In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a partnership between the state’s Department of Health and Syracuse University on Dec. 16 to continue “ground-breaking and innovative” analysis of wastewater for COVID-19.
New York is testing for COVID-19 at several municipal treatment plants across the state. By the end of January, the state aims to test wastewater from at least one treatment plant in every county once per week, with some treatment plants testing more frequently.
In July 2020, New Shoreham’s Sewer Commission independently conducted testing of its wastewater for COVID-19. A wastewater test conducted by the Sewer Commission on July 5, 2020, revealed that an estimated 10 cases were found from sampling.
New Shoreham Sewer Commission Supt. Dylan Chase said he began testing wastewater biweekly to help establish public and municipal awareness of COVID-19 infection rates. Chase said the cost was $1,200 per test processed and analyzed by Biobot Analytics.
According to DEM, at that time, Block Island was the only town in Rhode Island testing wastewater for the presence of COVID-19. DEM noted that while the method of testing wastewater was a “work in progress,” the agency was considering the use for the state’s response to the pandemic.
Cassius Shuman is a PBN staff writer. Contact him at Shuman@PBN.com. You may also follow him on Twitter @CassiusShuman.
