Viral Pathogen and Surrogate Approaches for Assessing Treatment Performance in Water Reuse Grants
Safe and reliable water supplies are critical to our nation’s communities, environment, and economy. Communities, agriculture, and businesses are looking to diversify their water supply portfolios to meet current and future needs. Water reuse (also commonly known as water recycling or water reclamation) represents a major opportunity to enhance the sustainability and effective use of water resources to assure the quality of and supplement existing water supplies.
The reclamation and reuse of municipal wastewater can significantly increase the nation’s total available water resources, however, wastewater as a potential water source remains both a technical and economic challenge. When recycling wastewater, a chief public health concern is the risk posed by the presence of viral pathogens, which can be difficult to reduce with traditional sewage treatment approaches. Low densities of pathogenic viruses are difficult to detect and remove with current treatment methods, therefore the enumeration of surrogates can help address the challenges with low densities of viral pathogens.
Under the Viral Pathogen and Surrogate Approaches for Assessing Treatment Performance in Water Reuse RFA, EPA awarded over $6 million to institutions examining the development of standardized approaches to identify, characterize, and validate suitable viral surrogates and enumeration methods for quantifying the potential human health risks posed by the concentrations of human enteric viral pathogens found in reclaimed wastewater.
The grants will fund the following research projects:
Barnstable County Department of Health and Environment and Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, Massachusetts
Award: $1,239,482
Project Title: Human Virus and Viral Surrogates as Measures of Water Reuse Potential from Centralized and Decentralized Wastewater Treatment
Principal Investigators: George Heufelder and Oscar Pancorbo
Study Locations: Massachusetts
The goal of the project is to identify wastewater technologies and municipal treatment processes capable of removing human enteric viruses to allow safe reuse of the treated wastewater. Researchers are evaluating the use of five surrogates as possible indicators for the presence of human enteric viruses during treatment processes. These indicators will help assess human health risks from wastewater treatment systems to allow viral removal/inactivation as well as data to inform policies and guidelines relative to testing wastewater treatment technologies.
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Project Title: Developing Surrogate-Based Crediting Frameworks for Virus Control Through Water Recycling Facilities
Award: $1,239,980
Principal Investigator: Krista Wigginton
Study Locations: Ann Arbor Michigan; Las Vegas, Nevada; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Berkeley, California; Hampton Roads, Virginia
Researchers are developing predictive models and surrogate-based crediting frameworks for virus control through water recycling facilities. Through laboratory-scale testing, researchers expect to have an increased understanding of the relationship between molecular data, human enteric viruses, and water quality to develop surrogate-based predictive models and regulatory crediting frameworks. The researchers anticipate final frameworks can be readily adopted by states and will therefore have a direct beneficial impact on the water reuse industry.
Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana
Project Title: Novel Quantitative Methods for Indigenous Viruses in Wastewater: Improving the Assessment of Water Reuse Treatment Performance
Award: $1,239,241
Principal Investigator: Dr. Tiong Gim Aw
Study Locations: New Orleans, Louisiana; East Lansing Michigan; Riverside, California
The project goal is to develop a better understanding of indigenous viruses in different wastewater systems to design improved viral surrogate approaches that address challenges and shortcomings of current methodologies, including low concentrations of viruses in wastewater, quantitative detection, and a lack of specificity for addressing human health risk. In partnering with water facilities in California, Florida, and Ohio, researchers will analyze indigenous viruses in wastewater using metagenomics to identify improved surrogates for assessing treatment performance. The project will develop new knowledge that provides a better understanding of virus attenuation in wastewater and water treatment systems.
Water Research Foundation, Denver, Colorado
Project Title: Advancing Safety and Reliability to Protect Public Health: Identifying Quantitative Reductions of Viral Pathogens and Surrogates for Water Reuse Applications
Award: $1,239,813
Principal Investigator: Grace Jang
Study Locations: Tucson, Arizona
Researchers at the Water Research Foundation will identify chemical and/or viral surrogates during wastewater treatment processes in real-world systems and generate recommended reduction methods for each treatment process. The team will utilize different treatment processes at five water facilities to quantify the removal of selected human enteric viruses and define appropriate surrogates. The Water Research Foundation plans to determine risk reduction recommendations to meet desired risk goals of the water sector, communities, and regulators. This project will contribute to standardized protocols for the detection of pathogenic viruses, application of viral reduction values and surrogates, and how the results of this project can be used in practice during water reuse treatment processes to protect public health.
University of California, Irvine, California
Project Title: A Cross-Regional, Cross-Laboratory Investigation of Viral Pathogens and Surrogates in Wastewater for Non-Potable Reuse
Award: $1,240,000
Principal Investigator: Sunny Jiang
Study Locations: Miami, Florida; New Orleans, Louisiana; Salt Lake City, Utah; Northern and Southern California; Honolulu, Hawaii
The goal of this project is to address public health concerns about human viral pathogens in treated wastewater for non-potable reuse. University of California researchers will identify the best detection methods for viral pathogens and surrogates to further apply standard operations procedures from these methods across the United States. Experimental approaches will detect viral pathogens with quantitative microbial risk assessment models to estimate health risks from water exposure for non-potable reuse. The project connects academic researchers from eight different institutions and industrial partners from wastewater utilities to share viewpoints and to create a list of the best methods for identifying viral risk for non-potable water reuse and standard operational protocols.
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