Grantee Research Project Results
Understanding the role of wastewater treatment for mitigating antimicrobial resistance: leveraging historical trajectories, current day mass balances, and clinical relevance
EPA Grant Number: R840827Title: Understanding the role of wastewater treatment for mitigating antimicrobial resistance: leveraging historical trajectories, current day mass balances, and clinical relevance
Investigators: Newton, Ryan , Skwor, Troy , Miller, Todd , McNamara, Patrick
Institution: University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee , Marquette University
EPA Project Officer: Packard, Benjamin H
Project Period: September 1, 2024 through April 23, 2025
Project Amount: $2,038,572
RFA: National Priorities: Evaluation of Antimicrobial Resistance in Wastewater and Sewage Sludge Treatment and Its Impact on the Environment Request for Applications (RFA) (2023) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Human Health , Water , Water Treatment
Objective:
Our overarching objective is to provide estimates for the mass transport, removal, and persistence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) through the wastewater treatment train and into treatment facility outflows. We will also monitor for AMR and chemical stressors in a river that will receive wastewater effluent for the first time. From this objective, we can distinguish effective treatment processes for the removal of AMR and contextualize risks associated with wastewater treatment systems against other systems of concern.
Approach:
To achieve this objective, we will break down the wastewater treatment process into unit operations and determine changes in AMR quantities among system components and in relation to treatment facility operational parameters. Our research framework will integrate antimicrobial resistance gene and resistant bacteria quantification along with genomic and metagenomic-based DNA sequencing. We will determine AMR mass balances and changes in clinically relevant genotypes from the treatment facility influent through the treatment train and ultimately to facility outflows. We will contextualize the quantification and relative impact of antimicrobial resistance gene/bacteria removal by comparing wastewater resistance profiles today to those from wastewater collected over the past 10 years, to current resistant isolates from hospital clinics, and to both upstream (sewer overflow impacted) and downstream (treated wastewater effluent impacted) river systems.
Expected Results:
The results of this project will quantify the effectiveness of each unit process in wastewater treatment for removing AMR and facility parameters that impact resistance attenuation. Our decadal comparative analysis will determine if changes in influent loads over time have had an impact on the loading of AMR in treated effluent and thus will provide critical information for whether current treatment systems are effectively maintaining steady-state loading. Our analyses will further provide an understanding and quantification of the clinical significance of discharged AMR, and therefore risk associated with treated effluent and biosolids. Risks from outflows will be put in context through comparisons to upstream loading from combined sewer overflows and fate and transport of AMR in effluent discharge to surface waters.
Supplemental Keywords:
water, wastewater, risk, bacteria, antibiotics, antibiotic resistance, effluent, wastewater-based epidemiology, monitoring, biology, engineering, limnology, Great Lakes, rivers, activated sludge, anaerobic digestion, disinfection, hospitals, combined sewer overflows, beta-lactamase, carbapenemaseProgress and Final Reports:
The 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.