Grantee Research Project Results
Final Report: Water, Our Voice to the Future: Climate change adaptation and waterborne disease prevention on the Crow Reservation
EPA Grant Number: R835594Title: Water, Our Voice to the Future: Climate change adaptation and waterborne disease prevention on the Crow Reservation
Investigators: Doyle, John , Eggers, Margaret J.
Institution: Little Big Horn College , Montana State University
EPA Project Officer: Hahn, Intaek
Project Period: August 1, 2014 through July 31, 2017 (Extended to July 31, 2019)
Project Amount: $914,466
RFA: Science for Sustainable and Healthy Tribes (2013) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Tribal Environmental Health Research , Human Health
Objective:
The Crow Reservation community will be better able to plan for and adapt to the ecosystem and human health impacts of climate change if the assessment of existing and projected climate changes integrates the ecological knowledge of Tribal Elders with western scientific data on current and projected local and regional climate, hydrology and microbial water quality impacts.
Objective #1: Integrate traditional ecological and community knowledge, scientific data and climate models to produce a cohesive document which describes existing and projected local climate, hydrologic and microbial water quality changes and their impacts on resources, Crow traditions, ecosystems and community health.
- Hypothesis I: Traditional ecological and community knowledge of Tribal Elders, scientific data and modeling will effectively complement one other, to produce a more comprehensive assessment of existing and projected climate, hydrologic and microbial water quality changes and their impacts on resources, Crow traditions, ecosystems and community health.
- Hypothesis II: Future climate change impacts will be profound in the Northern Plains Crow Reservation, with climate and hydrologic changes exceeding current and historical observations.
- Hypothesis III: Local microbial water quality is influenced by climate driven spring flooding and late summer drought.
Objective #2: Improve community adaptation to climate change and reduce related health risks by increasing community understanding of current and projected climate change impacts, reducing associated waterborne disease risks, designing and implementing other key adaptation measures and investing in community capacity building.
Objective #3: Disseminate project results locally, regionally and nationally, through appropriate community venues, peer-reviewed publications and conferences, including the National Tribal Science Forum. Contribute lessons learned to other tribes in part by collaborating with the EPA as the EPA deems appropriate.
Integrated research results will provide the basis for Crow Tribal communities to better understand and proactively address climate change issues, partly by designing and initiating appropriate and sustainable adaptation strategies, protective of health, environment and Crow traditions. The research will contribute to scientific knowledge in climate change and results will be disseminated broadly in order to enhance scientific and technological understanding.
Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):
Objective 1. RESEARCH
Integrate traditional ecological and community knowledge, scientific data and climate models to produce a cohesive document which describes existing and projected local climate, hydrologic and microbial water quality changes and their impacts on resources, Crow traditions, ecosystems and community health.
Hypothesis I: Traditional ecological and community knowledge of Tribal Elders, scientific data and modeling will effectively complement one other, to produce a more comprehensive assessment of existing and projected climate, hydrologic and microbial water quality changes and their impacts on resources, Crow traditions, ecosystems and community health.
Objective #1(a) Collect, compile and assess community knowledge of climate change within memory, including impacts on local resources (water, plants, animals), Crow traditions, ecosystems and community health.
Community interviews (Doyle, Martin, LaFrance, Young, Lefthand, Eggers)
John Doyle and Project Coordinator Christine Martin completed 27 interviews with Crow Tribal members on the impacts of climate change on local water resources, plants, animals and people's lives. The transcripts were transcribed by a Tribal member and were analyzed by Doyle, Martin, LaFrance, Eggers, and long-time Crow Environmental Health Steering Committee members Sara Young and Myra Lefthand. Martin, Young and Lefthand all have Master's degrees in social science disciplines, so are versed in qualitative research and followed the standards for quality control in qualitative research. In addition to all the physical changes in local ecosystems, a key theme is the keen sense of loss people feel when well-loved plants, animals, water sources, habitats and weather patterns are damaged, diminished, changed and/or are no longer predictable. With Martin as the lead author, a manuscript describing this research has been prepared and is currently under review for publication. The results have been publicly presented locally, regionally and nationally. (See Appendix.)
Western science knowledge of local climate change (Eggers, Doyle, Whitlock)
Western science data available from local weather stations and from Montana Climate District 5 were already identified and compared to results from piloted Tribal Elder interviews. The interviews and recorded data report the same trends in decreasing winter snowpack, later onset of fall, milder winters, earlier onset of spring weather, increasing severity of spring flooding, hotter summers and increasingly severe late summer wildfires. Each source also provides additional unique data, not observed or recorded by the other source.
This work demonstrates what Tribal environmental knowledge (both passed down through the generations and from people's lived experiences), in combination with Western science data on and models for climate change, can contribute to our collective understanding of climate change impacts, particularly in communities which rely on wild foods and local water sources for a significant part of their diet. Climate change predictions for southcentral Montana largely continue or even accelerate changes documented in the local Western science record over the past 100 years as well as through interviews with Crow Tribal Elders. Increased frequency of severe spring floods and water shortages/low river flows/drought and more severe wildfires in August are our primary concerns in relation to public environmental health and hence adaptation planning. Increasing summer heat stress is also a concern. Interviews with Tribal Elders capture additional ecosystem changes not recorded by Western science in our region, particularly with regards to plants, animals and springs which are important subsistence and cultural resources. For instance, climate changes are already affecting quantity and quality of wild berry resources. Further, many Elders commented on unusual and increasingly unpredictable weather patterns, an observation not yet elucidated from the western science data.
A summary of these results was published as "Crow Climate Observations" (Doyle and Eggers, co-authors) on pages 23-26 of the Montana Climate Assessment, released in September 2017:
Whitlock C, Cross W, Maxwell B, Silverman N, Wade AA. 2017. 2017 Montana Climate Assessment. Bozeman and Missoula MT: Montana State University and University of Montana, Montana Institute on Ecosystems. 318 p. doi:10.15788/m2ww8w. Available at: http://montanaclimate.org/.
Currently, Doyle and Eggers are working with Whitlock and others on the next iteration of the Montana Climate Assessment, which is focused on the impacts of climate change on public environmental health. A summary of project interview data about the impacts of climate change on physical and mental health will be submitted for inclusion in this Assessment, slated for release in 2020.
Well water testing (Doyle, Eggers, Three Irons)
As 15% of the US population - and about 50% of the Crow Reservation community - rely on home well water, contamination of home well water is a widespread and significant environmental public health issue. If spring runoff, exacerbated by climate change, increases microbial and/or inorganic contamination of home wells, this will be a significant environmental public health impact.
During 2014-2017, more than 200 Crow Tribal home wells were tested for metals, nitrate, hardness (calcium and magnesium), alkalinity, pH, total dissolved solids, coliform and E. coli bacteria. The contaminants which most often exceeded EPA public drinking water standards were manganese, uranium, nitrate, arsenic and coliform bacteria. One hundred wells in the Little Big Horn River valley, where the majority of Tribal members live, were re-tested in the spring of 2017 to assess seasonal variability (spring runoff vs. other times of year). Initial analyses indicate that home wells are more likely to be coliform contaminated during spring runoff. Some metals concentrations can change between annual or biennial sampling dates, but there are no obvious patterns and further analyses will be conducted in 2020 (with other funding). The results will inform public education as to the best time of year for homeowners to test their well water quality.
In the final year of the grant, at the advice of collaborating geochemist, Dr. Stephanie Ewing, strontium and selenium were added to our list of analytes for testing home wells in the Bighorn River valley. Both elements were detected in nearly all valley wells tested during the 2017-2018 fiscal year, sometimes at levels exceeding EPA health standards. These pilot data indicate the need for more extensive well water testing for radionuclides.
Compilation of the geolocated 2011-2013, 2015-2016 and 2017 well water quality data has been completed. The initial analyses were presented at the Tribal Environmental Health conference in Corvallis, Oregon in late June 2018. During the summer of 2019, local Indian Health Service Hospital well water data was geolocated for inclusion in the project's GIS database. The team, led by Three Irons, initiated a project in the summer of 2019 to integrate these data with other existing groundwater, surface water, land use, infrastructure and other data into a GIS database to aid in watershed management for the Crow Tribe. With support from the team, Three Irons was able to secure other funding to continue this Crow Reservation GIS project for the 2019-2020 fiscal year, with potential continued funding to expand sampling, analyses and implementation.
A cumulative risk assessment was completed on the 2011-13 well water data and an article subsequently published on this in 2018 (Eggers et al., see Objective #3, Dissemination). IJERPH published the manuscript as a "Feature Paper" in its special issue Achieving Environmental Health Equity: Great Expectations. As of October 2019, the article had been viewed about 2400 times, downloaded by 2070 people and cited six times. These results were also presented at national and regional conferences during the 2018-2019 fiscal year. A second article, let by Doyle and Eggers, was published later in 2018 (Doyle et al., see Objective #3, Dissemination). As of October 2019, it had been viewed by about 1650 people and downloaded almost 2000 times. Doyle also presented this in poster format at a Symposium in Bozeman in 2018.
The work described above is being expanded and integrated over the next year with newer funding from NIEHS-NIH/EPA and USDA along with some new collaborators with diverse expertise. Additionally, new funding is providing opportunities to better understand anthropogenic sources of arsenic contamination (NIH), and the interaction of arsenic and sulfides in local well water as well as the effectiveness of home filtration systems for these compounds (Montana NSF EPSCoR program).
Hypothesis II: Future climate change impacts will be profound in the Northern Plains Crow Reservation, with climate and hydrologic changes exceeding current and historical observations.
Objective #1(b) Locate, compile and analyze local and regional monitoring data for climate, hydrology and water quality, and climate model forecasts relevant to the Crow Reservation.
Soon after our grant was funded, we learned that the Montana Institute on Ecosystems had decided to undertake a statewide assessment of future climate change impacts in Montana, with separate analyses for each of Montana's seven Climate Divisions (http://montanaclimate.org/chapter/executive-summary). As they had tremendous expertise and resources to devote to this task, it was clear that the best approach was to wait for their assessment and learn from it.
This Assessment found that Montana's Southcentral Climate Division, which includes the Crow Reservation, is warming at 0.44 degrees Fahrenheit per decade (1950-2015), the third fastest of the seven regions in the state. For the period 2040 - 2069, if the United States continues with "business as usual" emissions (scenario RCP8.5), the increase in annual average daily maximum temperature will be more than six degrees Fahrenheit in our Division. Impacts on precipitation and water resources, forests and agriculture were also projected. The full report can be found at http://montanaclimate.org.
Hypothesis III: Local microbial water quality is influenced by climate driven spring flooding and late summer drought.
Objective #1(c) Collect water quality data from the Little Bighorn River to include an assessment of key bacterial loads present in the Little Bighorn River at crucial sites (swim holes, drinking water plant intake). Monitor for indicator bacteria (coliforms and E. coli by culturing methods) and enteropathogenic E. coli (by molecular methods) in water, suspended sediments, and stream bottom sediments. Obtain the response of these key microbial constituents to projected changes in river water due to climate change by exposing sediment associated microbes to seasonal in situ conditions and in controlled laboratory experiments. (Brame, Camper, McDermott, Doyle)
1) Project Activities
Target Organism Partitioning: In compliance with Objective #1(c), fourteen sampling events occurred and were completed as of August 31st, 2017. During these events surface water samples were collected, transported, and processed for coliform and Escherichia coli concentrations in total and planktonic proportion in surface water. Various river and environmental conditions were sampled to gauge indicator organism loading across years and seasons, as well as spatially and between habitats (particulate associated vs. planktonic). Temporal and spatial quantifications of target organisms were a direct goal of this report and results show a very dynamic nature of the River and some distinct patterns in direct relation to human health. Graduate Student Brame is in the processes of completing a manuscript, with the expectation to publish in a peer reviewed journal in the field of environmental microbiology or water quality early in 2020, focusing on Target Organism Partitioning as well as spatial and temporal trends of indicator organism concentrations in the Little Bighorn River.
Molecular Processing: As part of Objective #1(c) to "monitor for enteropathogenic E. coli in water, suspended sediments, and stream bottom sediments", DNA extracted from water and stream bed sediments was sequenced successfully at Argonne National Laboratories and sequences processed via QIIME2, a microbiome analysis package (https://docs.qiime2.org/2019.10/) and R, a "language and environment for statistical computing and graphics" (https://www.r-project.org/about.html). The collection of these samples was completed at the same times as those of Target Organism Partitioning. DNA was extracted from roughly 600 samples, as well as negative control samples, with the hope of monitoring shifts in the microbial community both spatially and temporally. Host specific fecal contamination was explored from DNA samples collected during the sampling regime following a detailed multiplex PCR approach. Through excessive PCR attempts, there appeared to be no amplification of the genes of interest for diarrheagenic E. coli in the extracted DNA. This result contrasts with what has been concluded in previous studies, where diarrheagenic E. coli have been isolated from the Little Bighorn using membrane filtration techniques (Hamner et al. 2014) and identified utilizing metagenomic profiling (Hamner et al. 2019). Based on conclusions from previous studies and results of the Target Organism Partitioning study, it is impossible to say that those specific diarrheagenic E. coli are not in the water.
Climate Change and Microbial River Water Quality: In compliance with Objective #1(c) to "obtain the response of key microbial constituents to projected changes in river water due to climate change by exposing sediment associated microbes to seasonal in situ conditions and controlled laboratory experiments", data were analyzed from microcosm experiments. These microcosm experiments involved monitoring an enteropathogenic strain of E. coli in filter sterilized River water across a range of temperatures (5°C, 15°C, 25°C) in its planktonic form, and with the addition of sterilized riverbed sediment across those ranges in temperatures. Thus, the viability of E. coli cells across ranges in temperatures as well as preference for partitioning between sediments and planktonic form was studied. Results of these microcosm experiments suggest the preference for this specific E. coli strain to survive for extended periods of time at 15°C compared to the other studied temperatures. This was true for both planktonic microcosms and those with riverbed sediment addition. The cellular viability of this organism under 5°C and 25°C temperatures in planktonic microcosms and riverbed sediment microcosms was similar. That is, they both experienced a similar time point to which no cellular viability was recorded, although the respective rates of decay differed Results suggest that in the planktonic form across all three temperatures, this organism was able to persist for many days without any nutrient addition outside of filter sterilized water. The riverbed sediment microcosms all resulted in an increased time of cellular viability compared to their planktonic counterparts. Across all three temperatures, cells appeared to partition themselves to a sediment-associated habitat quickly. With the climate outlook of more frequent intense weather events, flooding and drought, these experiments show the need for understanding more about pathogenic organisms in the environment and their potential for long term survivability and viability in surface water and sediment.
From these experiments arose the opportunity for a potential resuscitation experiment involving this strain of E. coli. Small amounts of inoculum from planktonic experiments with no cells in culturable form remaining were added to a low concentration nutrient medium to understand if cells would resuscitate under a low nutrient environment and might have been entering a viable but nonculturable state. The results showed that this strain was responding and proliferating when introduced to low nutrient medium and could possibly be entering a viable but nonculturable state when resources for growth and cellular maintenance were depleted in microcosm experiments. The results from the microcosm experiments show the extent and duration of an enteropathogenic strain of E. coli at varying temperatures in a river medium as well as preference for partitioning between sediment and planktonic forms. These results, if confirmed in additional studies, would have tremendous significance for public health, as present EPA standard methods for assessing fecal contamination in water sources are based on culture methods for detecting and quantifying E. coli.
(2) Details of all technical aspects of the project
Target Organism Partitioning:
Findings/Results: Over the course of the three-year study period, there was significant variation in target organism concentrations between not only river conditions (temporal) but also between sites on a given date (spatial). These indicator organisms were broken down into coliform and E. coli and between habitats in the surface water: total and planktonic. The general trend in portioning in the monitored habitats was that during most times of the year (pre-runoff, peak runoff, summer and fall) there were higher total to planktonic cell ratios, meaning these cells were partitioned to suspended particulates in the River's surface water. Winter sampling dates were the only time of the year where the majority of indicator cells were partitioned in the planktonic form. These winter dates also corresponded to the lowest collected concentrations across the period of study. The highest concentration of indicator organisms was found during peak runoff of 2015, which was also the largest discharge level that the river reached during the study period. As a general trend, indicator organism concentrations were positively related to discharge values, although this was not true during Year 2 of the study. The highest concentrations of indicator organisms during Year 2 were collected during August, months after peak runoff when flows were low and river temperatures were high. Coliform and E. coli, both planktonic and total concentrations followed the same general trends across the temporal scale.
When assessing the data on a spatial scale, it was often the upstream sites that were significantly elevated in indicator organism concentrations when compared to downstream sites. There were instances where this pattern was reversed, and those dates were mostly during peak runoff collections. One observation of note is that the coliform and E. coli did not always follow this same pattern of elevation between upstream and downstream sites. Considering E. coli are a Coliform, the researchers expected their concentrations would be positively related across each sampling time point when monitoring between sites, but that was not the case.
These results are significant to the Crow Reservation community. Considering the Little Bighorn River is used as a source of water for the municipal water treatment plant, that tribal members recreate during the spring and summer months in the river, and that raw surface water is ingested in tribal ceremonies, our results show the river's potential for causing human health issues is heightened during spring and summer, compared to fall and winter when there seems to be a minimal fecal contamination issue. Additionally, the dynamic spatial variability means that no location or reach of the River can be designated as consistently safe, even for recreation, during the hot summer months.
Quality Assurance: During sampling events, negative control samples (100mL sterile water) were taken from Montana State University to the field sites, opened, transported back and processed alongside indicator organism samples. We found no negative sample with a positive result for coliform or E. coli across all sampling dates. Data were recorded during the collection period by hand then transferred to electronic form with those hard copies saved in a lab notebook.
Molecular Organism Processing:
Findings/Results: Through processing of 16S rRNA gene sequences collected from riverbed sediment, particulate associated, and planktonic habitats on the Little Bighorn River across sites and river conditions, a total spatial and temporal microbial community analysis was completed. These results show significant differences in microbial community composition between habitats, time, and space. As with the indicator organism monitoring, the microbial community varied greatly between river conditions and on a yearly basis; no two river conditions displayed the exact same microbial community. Utilizing dissimilarity matrices, PCoA ordination, cluster analysis, and Random Forest Classification analysis, statistically significant differences in the microbial community of planktonic and particulate associated habitats were defined for each river condition on a temporal basis. These same methods were used to differentiate the community based on a spatial level. Although six sites were monitored over the course of this study, it became apparent that spatial connectivity plays a role in this river system; upstream sites displayed similar communities to each other and downstream sites were similar to one another. Through Random Forest, we were able to qualify and quantify those specific genera that were deemed important to determining whether a sample came from a specific habitat, condition, or location (upstream, downstream). To the author's knowledge, this is the first study of its kind, monitoring the microbial community of three separate habitats over a three-year period on a small-scale discharge driven river on a spatial and temporal scale.
Quality Assurance: Negative control samples were included in each DNA extraction process and included in sequencing processes. If negative control samples included any positive 16S rRNA amplification, those sequences and samples were recorded and controlled for in downstream sequencing processing.
Climate Change and Microbial River Water Quality:
Findings/Results: Results from experiments involving enteropathogenic E. coli have shown that cells remained viable in planktonic form longer than the water retention time on the Little Bighorn River. Results have also demonstrated, of the three temperatures manipulated in the study, 15°C water temperatures allow for the longest cellular viability with no nutrient influx in both planktonic and sediment addition microcosms. There are varying rates of decay for each of the three temperatures and between each of the two environments monitored. Microcosms with sediment added showed a switch in the partitioning from planktonic to sediment very quickly. These sediment microcosms also experienced a longer period of cellular viability compared to the planktonic experiments at all three temperatures. The resuscitation ability of this pathogenic E. coli was also monitored and did have resuscitation ability, suggesting that the strain may enter a viable but nonculturable state when resources become depleted in its immediate environment and exposed to a minimal nutrient medium.
Temperature driven differences between the decay rate of this strain were observed, although those at increased temperatures, as we might see in freshwater systems in the future, had a shorter time of viability. This might be specific to the strain and it would be difficult to assess the effects of temperature on those organisms that are significant from a human health prospective.
Quality Assurance: Three replicates of microcosm were completed in the same water bath incubator shaker for a given temperature and habitat. Along with these replicates, a negative control was included in the water bath and cell counts were performed alongside those microcosm experiments for each timepoint of sample collection. There were no cross contaminations between positive and negative control samples over the duration of the experiments. During the resuscitation experiments, a negative control of low concentration nutrient broth was also included alongside those with inoculum from the E. coli positive microcosm.
Objective 2. COMMUNITY ADAPTATION
Improve community adaptation to climate change and reduce related health risks by increasing community understanding of current and projected climate change impacts (such as spring flooding), reducing associated waterborne disease risks, designing and implementing other key adaptation measures and investing in community capacity building.
a) Well water testing and outreach (Doyle, Martin, Three Irons, LaFrance, Eggers)
After the 2016 testing and again after the 2017 spring testing (during high runoff), Eggers prepared a spreadsheet with results and a letter comparing and explaining both years' testing results, along with any health risks and mitigation options. Martin sent these to families and she and Doyle discuss results with families. Doyle and Martin continue to do outreach with well owners and visit with about ten families a week regarding their well water quality and safety. Participant compensation in the form of a home water cooler was provided to families with unsafe water in 2016, and to those few families whose wells tested unsafe for the first time in 2017. Doyle and Martin also presented and explained our Reservation-wide well testing results at a local health fair, using a poster that displayed GIS-generated maps of each contaminant of concern, with explanations of the health risks.
Doyle and Eggers worked with a bilingual Tribal well owner, a plumber and a videographer to prepare a bilingual video (in Crow and English) demonstrating and explaining how to shock chlorinate a well and posted it on our Project's Facebook page. Project Coordinator Martin maintains and continues to develop our Facebook page titled Crow Water Quality Project. This is a public Facebook page providing community education on local water quality issues and share summative project results. (No individually identifiable well water data are posted.)
Doyle and Martin are seeing that participants are using the water coolers previously distributed (as compensation for their time to complete the survey and testing protocol with us). Overall, with the downturn in the local economy resulting from drastically diminished coal mining revenues, poverty is worsening across the Reservation. This is being reflected in more families with unaddressed plumbing issues, even lack of running water altogether. Improving access to safe drinking water for these rural families is even more imperative.
We continue to see that it is repeated contact and availability that builds trust - we have to be a resource to the community, and open to discussions about water and health at any time or place we meet folks. Second, for our work to be sustainable, we are continuing to build community capacity, including Crow students, to create a network of people who will support one another in this ongoing work.
(b) Community Capacity Building: Crow Tribal Student Interns
Three Irons conducted his graduate research on factors increasing risk of microbial contamination of home well water in Crow, and on how that correlates with metals contamination. He has completed his Master's degree in Land Resources Environmental Science, Geospatial Emphasis, and now works with us as the PI for the Crow Reservation GIS project for watershed management described above (page 3). Tribal college interns Rachel Stone and Jaricka Bear Below have gone on to bachelor's degree programs in nursing and in community health, respectively. Post-bac intern JoRee LaFrance was accepted into a PhD program in soil and water science at the University of Arizona, with Drs. Jon Chorover and Karletta Chief, and is currently in her second year. MSU environmental health major Tillie Stewart is researching anthropogenic sources of arsenic contamination on the Reservation with Dr. Ellen Lauchnor, a relatively new colleague in environmental engineering, and her graduate student. Stewart presented her research at the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) 2019, having won a travel scholarship to this conference. As a result of her presentation, she has been invited to interview for graduate studies at two prestigious universities.
(c) Other adaptation measures
A key lesson learned is that families need and want to learn home plumbing skills beyond the expertise of our project staff, none of whom are licensed plumbers or electricians. For instance, even replacing an old style well cap with a sanitary cap can require electrical knowledge. This capacity building will be essential to mitigating the widespread challenges of securing safe water for domestic uses. The team has been meeting with a supportive local foundation about this goal and hopes to have a funded initiative underway in 2020.
In analyzing local climate data, we learned that there had not been a functioning public weather station anywhere on the Reservation for many years. Hence, approval was granted from the EPA and a weather station was installed just outside of Crow Agency, by the Montana Climate Office (MCO). It went live in April 2017. As of the annual report from MCO in early June 2017, the station was functioning at 100% and had already collected more than 30,000 data points. In addition to re-establishing data collection on temperature, precipitation and other weather variables for the Crow Reservation, soil moisture data is being recorded for the first time. The initial annual report from MCO is available here:
http://climate.umt.edu/files/170606%20Mesonet%20Progress%20Report%20June%202017.pdf.
Pending work (with other funding) includes analyzing and then communicating to Tribal members how spring runoff affects metals contamination of home wells. 115+ wells were tested during spring as well as during a drier season, and the results have been returned to and explained to participants. Analysis of the seasonal differences (if any) in metals, nitrate and microbial contaminants is planned for spring-summer 2020, with subsequent publication by the team in an environmental health or water quality journal.
Our team had initially hoped to be able to engage Tribal members in direct discussions of climate change impacts and planning for adaptation. However, with the drastic drop in the coal industry, there has been a near collapse of the Crow Reservation economy, including the loss of many hundreds of jobs and of basic public health services. This means that economic development is the priority need, and many hope for the return of the coal-based economy. Hence, climate-related discussions are very difficult for our communities to establish.
(d) Quality Assurance, including Human Subjects Protection
The quality assurance requirements are being met by following the QAPPs and the IRB developed and approved by LBHC, MSU and the EPA. Energy Laboratories is an EPA certified lab and all of its quality control procedures are available on its website. All home well water samples submitted to Energy Laboratories for inorganics analysis are delivered in person following Chain of Custody protocols.
Objective 3. DISSEMINATION
Disseminate project results locally, regionally and nationally, through appropriate community venues, peer-reviewed publications and conferences, including the National Tribal Science Forum. Contribute lessons learned to other tribes in part by collaborating with the EPA as the EPA deems appropriate.
In addition to local dissemination efforts described above, including one on one education of well owners, the project has published several articles and presented locally, regionally and nationally. Additional publications are in preparation or planned.
Twenty-seven formal conference presentations, posters, webinars and seminars have been given by team members locally, regionally and nationally.
Conclusions:
Objective 1. RESEARCH
Integrate traditional ecological and community knowledge, scientific data and climate models to produce a cohesive document which describes existing and projected local climate, hydrologic and microbial water quality changes and their impacts on resources, Crow traditions, ecosystems and community health.
Data suggest that there are specific timepoints or river conditions when recreation and raw surface water consumption should be avoided on the Little Bighorn River. The concentrations of E. coli during peak runoff and during the summer months fall above the EPA's recommended limit for recreation. There are patterns that begin to develop over this three-year study which reflect the extent to which discharge might affect the concentration of indicator organisms in surface water on the Little Bighorn. There is not a dilution effect where an increase in discharge results in a decrease in organism concentration, but the opposite; they are positively related. Indicator organisms also shared this positive relationship with total suspended solids (TSS), which is also positively related to discharge levels. Additionally, the data show a very strong spatial pattern of statistically significant differences in levels of indicator organisms on a per date basis. This means that over a relatively small spatial scale we are observing drastic changes in the concentration of indicator organisms, or the intense dynamic nature of rivers in streams.
Spatial connectivity played a role in community composition, with upstream sites resulting in similar planktonic and particulate associated community structure, as well as those downstream, exemplified by ADONIS and Random Forest Classification analyses. As the current literature emphasizes lakes and large-order rivers, this study contributes to freshwater microbial ecology concerning small-order rivers across constrained spatial scales.
Climate Change and Microbial River Water Quality:
These results suggest the potential for harmful pathogenic E. coli to travel for extended periods of time in a river system without any outside increase in nutrients. There is evidence suggesting that these organisms might not only be able to survive outside of a mammalian gut but proliferate as well (Abberton, et al, 2016; Brennan, et al, 2010; Jang, et al, 2017; NandaKafle, et al, 2018). Our results coupled with that knowledge suggest the potential for these organisms to be transported from a point-source where they might fall out of suspension in the water column, live in the riverbed sediment and become resuspended during increased flows or disturbance. One important implication for human health is that it is even more vital than previously recognized to keep fecal material out of surface water, whether the sources are from livestock, septic systems or inadequate municipal wastewater treatment facilities. For the Crow community, it means that fecal contamination anywhere along the river presents health risks to all downstream users, even 20 -30 miles distant.
References:
- Abberton, C.L., Bereschenko, L., van der Wielen, P.W.J.J., Smith, C.J. Survival, Biofilm Formation, and Growth Potential of Environmental and Enteric Escherichia coli Strains in Drinking Water Microcosms. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 2016; 82(17): 5320-5331.
- Brennan, F.P., Abram, F., Chinalia, F.A., Richards, K.G., O'Flaherty, V. Characterization of Environmentally Persistent Escherichia coli Isolated Leached from an Irish Soil. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 2010; 76(7): 2175-2180.
- Hamner, S., Brown, B. L., Hasan, N.A, Franklin, M.J., Doyle, J., Eggers, M.J., Colwell, R.R., Ford, T.E. Metagenomic Profiling of Microbial Pathogens in the Little Bighorn River, Montana. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 2019; 16:1097.
- Hamner, S., Broadaway, S.C., Berg, E., Stettner, S., Pyle, B.H., Big Man, N., Old Elk, J., Eggers, M.J., Kindness, L., Good Luck, B., Ford, T.E., Camper, A.C. Detection and source tracking of Escherichia coli, harboring intimin and Shiga toxin genes, isolated from the Little Bighorn River, Montana. International Journal of Environmental Health Research 2014; 24: 341-362.
- Jang, J., Sadowsky, M.J., Byappanahalli, M.N., Yan, T., Ishii, S. Environmental Escherichia coli: ecology and public health implications - a review. Journal of Applied Microbiology 2017; 123(3): 570-581.
- NandaKafle, G., Christie, A.A., Vilain, S., Brözel, V.S. Growth and Extended Survival of Escherichia coli O157:H7 in Soil Organic Matter. 2018; 9:976. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2018.00762.
Journal Articles on this Report : 3 Displayed | Download in RIS Format
Other project views: | All 53 publications | 5 publications in selected types | All 4 journal articles |
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Doyle JT, Kindness L, Realbird J, Eggers MJ, Camper AK. Challenges and opportunities for tribal waters:addressing disparities in safe public drinking water on the Crow Reservation in Montana, USA. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 2018;15(4):567. |
R835594 (2018) R835594 (Final) R836157 (2018) R836157 (2019) |
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Eggers MJ, Doyle JT, Lefthand MJ, Young SL, Moore-Nall AL, Kindness L, Other Medicine R, Ford TE, Dietrich E, Parker AE, Hoover JH, Camper AK. Community engaged cumulative risk assessment of exposure to inorganic well water contaminants, Crow Reservation, Montana. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 2018;15(1):76. |
R835594 (2017) R835594 (2018) R835594 (Final) R836157 (2019) |
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Hamner S, Brown BL, Hasan NA, Franklin MJ, Doyle J, Eggers MJ, Colwell RR, Ford TE. Metagenomic profiling of microbial pathogens in the Little Bighorn River, Montana. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 2019;16(7):1097. |
R835594 (Final) |
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Supplemental Keywords:
Water quality, climate change, Native American, Crow, traditional ecological knowledge, risk assessment, rivers, ecology, pathogens, E. coli, community-engaged research, CBPRRelevant Websites:
- Montana Climate Assessment Exit
- Executive Summary Exit
- QIIME2 User Documentation Exit
- Montana Climate Office: Montana Mesonet Progress Report 2017 Exit
Progress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.
Project Research Results
- 2018 Progress Report
- 2017 Progress Report
- 2016 Progress Report
- 2015 Progress Report
- Original Abstract
4 journal articles for this project