Monitoring Pathogen Concentrations in Sewage to Inform Treatment Goals and Public Health Risks

Thursday, March 30, 2017 2:30 pm - 3:30 pm EDT (GMT -04:00)

Joan Rose
As part of the Water Institute's WaterTalks lecture series, Joan B. Rose, the winner of the 2016 Stockholm Water Prize and Homer Nowlin Chair in Water Research at Michigan State University, presents "Monitoring Pathogen Concentrations in Sewage to Inform Treatment Goals and Public Health Risks."

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Paid parking is available in several lots. Lot C is recommended, as it should have availability. 

Description

When examining water quality goals associated with sewage discharges and/or reuse potential, there is a need for understanding pathogen concentrations in wastewater and removal through secondary treatment process and other advanced processes. This is critical to the development of protective, science based public health criteria and to maximize removal credits for existing treatment processes.  

As climate change is predicted to intensify storms in many areas, treatment performance under high flow conditions should be considered in addition to performance under typical flow. Waterborne pathogen levels in urban watersheds are known to generally increase during wet weather events and can be found in high concentrations in combined sewer overflows and storm water flows. Wet weather events which produce high flow rates in treatment systems may reduce microbial treatment efficacy. 

Full-scale evaluation of many of the new treatment designs to handle wet weather-sewage flows and the microbial load has not been undertaken. Risk assessment and new microbial methods for full scale evaluation to address public health goals are now acceptable approaches. 

Several cases studies will be presented where by enteric virus (culturalable), enteric virus (qPCR), male specific phage, Salmonella, Cryptosporidium, and Giardia were quantified in raw wastewater, primary effluent, and secondary effluent and the log removals determined.  Implications for public health will be discussed

Speaker bio

Joan B. Rose holds the Homer Nowlin Chair in Water Research at Michigan State University in the Depts of Fisheries & Wildlife and Plant, Soil and Microbiological Science, and currently leads of the Global Water Pathogens Project in partnership with UNESCO.   

Dr. Rose earned her BSc and PhD in microbiology from the University of Arizona, Tucson and is an international expert in water microbiology, water quality and public health safety. She has published more than 300 manuscripts. Her work addresses the use of new molecular tools for surveying and mapping water pollution for recreational and drinking water, irrigation water, coastal and ballast waters; assessment of innovative water treatment technology for the developed and developing world; and use of quantitative microbial risk assessment. She is the winner of the 2016 Stockholm Water Prize, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. She currently serves on the EPA Science Advisory Board for the Great Lakes. She is the 2001 recipient of the Clarke Water Prize and recently been awarded Honorary Citizenship in Singapore for her contributions to water quality, water education and Singapore’s water security 4-taps program. 

Watch Joan speak at Singapore International Water Week

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