Abstract
Untreated wastewater samples were collected from the Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA) Water Resource Recovery Facility (WRRF) located in southeast Michigan between April 8 and May 26, 2020. The WRRF is the largest single-site wastewater treatment facility in the US, and it receives wastewater from its service area via three main interceptors: Detroit River Interceptor (DRI), North Interceptor-East Arm (NI-EA), and Oakwood-Northwest-Wayne County Interceptor (O-NWI). A total of 54 untreated wastewater samples were collected (18 per interceptor) at the point of intake into the WRRF. Viruses were isolated from wastewater using electropositive NanoCeram column filters (Argonide, Sanford, Florida). For each sample, an average of 45 L of wastewater was passed through NanoCeram electropositive cartridge filters at a rate of no more than 11.3 L/m. Viruses were eluted and concentrated and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) concentrations were quantified with reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). SARS-CoV-2 was detected in 100% of samples, and measured concentrations were in the range of 104–105 genomic copies/L. Quantification of concentrations of human viruses, such as SARS-CoV-2, in wastewater is a critical first step in the development of wastewater-based epidemiology predictive methods. However, accurate prediction involves the incorporation of multiple other measurements, data, and processes, such as the estimation of fate and detention times of viruses in the sewer collection network, estimation of contributing population, incorporation of disease characteristics based on anthropometric data, and others. A viral disease prediction model (Viral PD) that incorporates all these other inputs is currently being developed for COVID-19 in Detroit, Michigan.
Highlights
Recent attention has focused on the detection of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in wastewater for monitoring Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreaks
The specific objective of this paper is to report the first detection of SARS-CoV-2 in Detroit, Michigan, regional wastewater and to present methods used, including sampling of large volumes of wastewater, concentration, elution, and quantification
These dilutions included volume of wastewater passed through the NanoCeram filter, 1 L of beef extract used for elution, 30 mL of Na2HPO4, volume of RNA used in reverse transcription (10 μL), dilution factor of inhibition control (100×), and volume of cDNA used in qPCR
Summary
Recent attention has focused on the detection of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in wastewater for monitoring Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreaks. SARS-CoV-2 has been detected using molecular methods [reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR)] in untreated wastewaters in Australia (Ahmed et al 2020), Italy (La Rosa et al 2020), the Netherlands (Lodder and de Roda Husman 2020), and Spain (Randazzo et al 2020). In Spain, 42 influent wastewater samples were collected and analyzed (200 mL each) with 70% positive for N1, 58% positive for N2, and 78% positive of N3, and an average concentration of 5.4 log genomic copies/L (Randazzo et al 2020). Environmental samples, such as wastewater, are complex, and molecular testing in such matrices is more complicated than molecular testing in clinical samples. The specific objective of this paper is to report the first detection of SARS-CoV-2 in Detroit, Michigan, regional wastewater and to present methods used, including sampling of large volumes of wastewater, concentration, elution, and quantification
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