Smith, Ted

Ted Smith is the Director of the Center for Healthy Air Water and Soil at the University of Louisville. Dr. Smith serves on the Louisville Mayor's COVID testing taskforce and directs the community wastewater monitoring. Additionally, he co-directs the Kentucky Department of Corrections wastewater monitoring.

Titles from this speaker

Description: Variability of RNase P, PMMoV and CrAssphage concentration in wastewater across...

Variability of RNase P, PMMoV and CrAssphage concentration in wastewater across distinct urban sewershed scales, Kentucky, USA

Abstract

Understanding the human fecal concentration in a pooled wastewater sample is important for interpreting results of wastewater disease surveillance studies at different scales. Fecal indicator positive controls can be used for quantifying this concentration. Wastewater monitoring studies must also be designed to best incorporate knowledge of defecation frequency; while many studies rely on 24-hour composite samples, it is known that 60-70% of child-bearing age individuals do not have a regular 24-hour defecation cycle (Heaton et al., 1992). The aim of this work is to report on the variability of three commonly used fecal indicator targets (RNase P, PMMoV and CrAssphage) in 24-hour composite wastewater samples across 28 urban sewersheds of varying scales collected in four counties of Kentucky from August to December 2020. Results from the untransformed wastewater data indicate concentration ranges across five orders of magnitude: fecal indicator density of human RNase P ranged from 5.1 x 101 to 1.15 x 106 copies/ml; PMMoV ranged from 7.23 x 103 to 3.53 x 107 copies/ml; and CrAssphage ranged from 9.69 x 103 to 1.85 x 108 copies/ml. Despite stationary sample collection sites during COVID-19 lockdown, regional and temporal variability for fecal indicators was seen, with no clear relationship between fecal indicator concentrations and sewershed size or population income level. When used for public health, wastewater disease surveillance requires better regional and temporal baseline data on positive controls representing human contribution to a pooled wastewater sample.

The following conference paper was presented at the Public Health and Water Conference & Wastewater Disease Surveillance Summit in Cincinnati, OH, March 21-24, 2022.

SpeakerSmith, Ted

Presentation time

16:25:00

16:45:00

Session time

15:45:00

16:45:00

SessionLaboratory Methods

Session number5

Session locationDuke Energy Convention Center, Cincinnati, Ohio

TopicResearch

Author(s)

Smith, Ted

Author(s)R. Holm1; M. Nagarkar2; R. Yeager3; D. Talley4; A. Chaney5; J. Rai6; A. Mukherjee7; S. Rai8; A. Bhatnagar9; T. Smith10

SourceProceedings of the Water Environment Federation

Document typeConference Paper

PublisherWater Environment Federation

Print publication date Mar 2022

DOI10.2175/193864718825158285

Volume / Issue

Content sourcePublic Health and Water Conference

Word count18

Wastewater disease surveillance in distinct urban sewershed scales, Louisville, KY

Abstract

The role of wastewater disease surveillance at distinct urban sewershed scales has been underresearched. The aim of this work was to investigate the presence and variability of SARS-COV-2 across 17 sewersheds in Louisville, KY, USA, across a range of population sizes, geographic areas and locations within the sewer network. The study period was August 2020 to April 2021, prior to the B.1.617.2 virus. A review of the sewer network service area found that 97% of households were included in our wastewater disease surveillance, indicating equity in our community monitoring in approach. The study results indicate in-network community sample locations from manhole street lines, and which are closer to the deposition of feces of COVID-19 infected patients, had the widest variability of median values of the loge concentration SARS-COV-2. The five treatment centers, sampling from 31,000 to 350,000 people had fewer extreme values likely because of mixing. In a study area of 770,000 people, the sewershed site-specific loge concentrations do not have the same temporal trends and even neighboring geographic areas did not necessarily have correlations, demonstrating the utility of studying sub-populations down to 8,000 people for public health response which is lost if only performing wastewater disease surveillance at treatment centers. Pertinently, larger catchment areas (<100,000) are less sensitive to changes in SARS-CoV-2 in the population when compare with sub 100,000 person catchment areas. The results of this study may inform other systems wide strategies in wastewater disease surveillance beyond SARS-CoV-2 targets.

The following conference paper was presented at the Public Health and Water Conference & Wastewater Disease Surveillance Summit in Cincinnati, OH, March 21-24, 2022.

SpeakerSmith, Ted

Presentation time

10:45:00

11:05:00

Session time

10:45:00

11:45:00

SessionLocalized Case Studies

Session number9

Session locationDuke Energy Convention Center, Cincinnati, Ohio

TopicCollection Systems, Data Management, Research, wastewater

Author(s)