GLWA, City of Detroit and MSU expand partnership on virus detection project during the pandemic by using sewer system to help predict outbreaks

DETROIT – The City of Detroit and the Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA) have expanded their partnership with Michigan State University’s (MSU) College of Engineering to use samples of untreated sewage as one of several methods to detect virus outbreaks, including COVID-19. Phase One of the partnership was initiated in November 2017 between the MSU engineering research team led by Associate Professor Irene Xagoraraki, PhD, and the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) and continued into Phase Two to focus on the COVID-19 outbreak using funding from GLWA in Spring 2020. This fall, a grant from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) is funding the expansion to monitoring of sewage in nine zip codes throughout southeast Michigan.

DWSD, GLWA, and MSU have been at the forefront of U.S. wastewater utilities using the sewer system to help identify virus outbreaks. Starting in November 2017, the National Science Foundation funded the Phase One, and the team proved the hypothesis that untreated sewage coming from homes and businesses could help provide advance notice of virus outbreaks using the molecular analysis of the samples. The outcomes of Phase One have been published in two scientific journals, by Science Direct and the Journal of Applied Microbiology.