((PKG)) COVID WASTEWATER
((Banner: COVID Wastewater))
((Reporter/Camera: Shelley Schlender))
((Adapted by: Philip Alexiou))
((Map: Boulder, Colorado))
((Main characters: 1 female; 1 male))
((NATS))
((Popup Banner: The University of Colorado is taking an
innovative approach to monitoring COVID))
((NATS))
((Cresten Mansfeldt, Engineering Professor, University of
Colorado))
Well, we call our project, Project Half Shell, because it's an
homage to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles hanging out in the
sewers.
((Jessice Darby, Engineering Student, University of
Colorado))
Guy in the blue, his name’s Cresten Mansfeldt. He's our
professor. He's done a lot of really cool stuff around the world
with different water systems and epidemiology.
((Cresten Mansfeldt, Engineering Professor, University of
Colorado))
So, that's an interior of a manhole. It's one where it's servicing
the dorms on campus. So, what’s flowing through here is actually
domestic wastewater, things we send down the drain through the
toilets or through showers or laundry systems. Basically, any
drains that are coming out, end up flowing into these river
networks that exist underneath most municipalities and cities.
Here, we're most interested in what's coming out of the toilets
and feces because that seems to be where individuals can
shed the SARS-CoV-2 virus here.
((Jessice Darby, Engineering Student, University of
Colorado))
COVID is in your intestines and so, even if you don't have
symptoms or before it actually is more of a disease or infection, it
can be found in your intestines. So, if you shed it into the
sewer system, you can kind of determine if people have it, even if
it's before they have symptoms or if they don't ever have
symptoms.
((NATS))
((Cresten Mansfeldt, Engineering Professor, University of
Colorado))
Yeah, so that’s actually, what you're seeing there is a peristaltic
pump.
((Jessice Darby, Engineering Student, University of
Colorado))
What they're doing in the pump is they're helping to set up a way
to collect the flow through 24 hours. It flows into a jerrycan
and then every day, the sample and collection team will get a few
vials of it to send back to the lab to be able to test whether or not
it has COVID in it. There's a huge sampling team that, when you
take it into the lab, they go through all the procedure to actually
find if there's any of the COVID-19 virus in it.
((Cresten Mansfeldt, Engineering Professor, University of
Colorado))
A single sample here is reflective of hundreds of
people's contributions. So, instead of having to individually collect
saliva samples from 200 to 400 people, barcode all of the
individual ones, we can take more of a combined and
anonymous approach, so that we have a monitoring but not a
diagnostic signal.
((NATS))
((Cresten Mansfeldt, Engineering Professor, University of
Colorado))
If you want to just close that up, we are actually good to be
done. We've got a site operational.
((NATS))
During testing, like we initially turned the system on in early
September, end of August. Pretty much simultaneously, we
started to see a lot of spikes within the system.
((Cresten Mansfeldt, Engineering Professor, University of
Colorado))
This led the administration to actually invoke some of the social
distancing options that were available. We're returning to a phase
where the sewer system is showing that it's a non-detectable
signal for SARS-CoV-2.
((Cresten Mansfeldt, Engineering Professor, University of
Colorado))
Wherever you have mass amount of people in a specific building,
so, at nursing homes, at high schools, this potentially would
provide a lower cost way to monitor a signal for viruses such
as SARS-CoV-2 or other pathogens over time.
((NATS))
((Banner: COVID Wastewater))
((Reporter/Camera: Shelley Schlender))
((Adapted by: Philip Alexiou))
((Map: Boulder, Colorado))
((Main characters: 1 female; 1 male))
((NATS))
((Popup Banner: The University of Colorado is taking an
innovative approach to monitoring COVID))
((NATS))
((Cresten Mansfeldt, Engineering Professor, University of
Colorado))
Well, we call our project, Project Half Shell, because it's an
homage to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles hanging out in the
sewers.
((Jessice Darby, Engineering Student, University of
Colorado))
Guy in the blue, his name’s Cresten Mansfeldt. He's our
professor. He's done a lot of really cool stuff around the world
with different water systems and epidemiology.
((Cresten Mansfeldt, Engineering Professor, University of
Colorado))
So, that's an interior of a manhole. It's one where it's servicing
the dorms on campus. So, what’s flowing through here is actually
domestic wastewater, things we send down the drain through the
toilets or through showers or laundry systems. Basically, any
drains that are coming out, end up flowing into these river
networks that exist underneath most municipalities and cities.
Here, we're most interested in what's coming out of the toilets
and feces because that seems to be where individuals can
shed the SARS-CoV-2 virus here.
((Jessice Darby, Engineering Student, University of
Colorado))
COVID is in your intestines and so, even if you don't have
symptoms or before it actually is more of a disease or infection, it
can be found in your intestines. So, if you shed it into the
sewer system, you can kind of determine if people have it, even if
it's before they have symptoms or if they don't ever have
symptoms.
((NATS))
((Cresten Mansfeldt, Engineering Professor, University of
Colorado))
Yeah, so that’s actually, what you're seeing there is a peristaltic
pump.
((Jessice Darby, Engineering Student, University of
Colorado))
What they're doing in the pump is they're helping to set up a way
to collect the flow through 24 hours. It flows into a jerrycan
and then every day, the sample and collection team will get a few
vials of it to send back to the lab to be able to test whether or not
it has COVID in it. There's a huge sampling team that, when you
take it into the lab, they go through all the procedure to actually
find if there's any of the COVID-19 virus in it.
((Cresten Mansfeldt, Engineering Professor, University of
Colorado))
A single sample here is reflective of hundreds of
people's contributions. So, instead of having to individually collect
saliva samples from 200 to 400 people, barcode all of the
individual ones, we can take more of a combined and
anonymous approach, so that we have a monitoring but not a
diagnostic signal.
((NATS))
((Cresten Mansfeldt, Engineering Professor, University of
Colorado))
If you want to just close that up, we are actually good to be
done. We've got a site operational.
((NATS))
During testing, like we initially turned the system on in early
September, end of August. Pretty much simultaneously, we
started to see a lot of spikes within the system.
((Cresten Mansfeldt, Engineering Professor, University of
Colorado))
This led the administration to actually invoke some of the social
distancing options that were available. We're returning to a phase
where the sewer system is showing that it's a non-detectable
signal for SARS-CoV-2.
((Cresten Mansfeldt, Engineering Professor, University of
Colorado))
Wherever you have mass amount of people in a specific building,
so, at nursing homes, at high schools, this potentially would
provide a lower cost way to monitor a signal for viruses such
as SARS-CoV-2 or other pathogens over time.
((NATS))
