Team:WLC-Milwaukee/Human Practices
Investigations and Impact
Our team started researching and seeking to understand the implications of water contamination, water testing, test affordability, and water safety early in our project and continued to analyze the role of our system within the scope of this research throughout the year. As a part of understanding the niche and scope of our kit, we consulted with experts in various fields to receive feedback both on water safety as a whole, substrates we could use in our kit, and how we could improve our test kit to fill an appropriate role within the water testing industry.
Community and Global Needs
We began by researching and compiling data establishing the importance of water testing and water safety, and the need for new water testing systems for the direct public consumer. Water testing is incredibly important for the reduction of water contamination worldwide. In the United States, the Center for Disease Control (the CDC) recommends various standards for water testing and safety that are then regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
In spite of the significant infrastructure and strict requirements for water purification and usage in the United States including potable water standards, wastewater effluent requirements, and recreational water usage standards, incidents of individuals being impacted by various forms of water contamination are reported each year. For example, high amounts of lead were found the drinking water of Flint, Michigan, just 4 years ago in 2014. In 1993, 69 people died and an estimated 400,000 people were sickened as a result of the Cryptosporidium parasite in the water in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Regular water testing is a necessity even when adequate filtration systems and regulations are in place. In rural areas, however, it becomes much more difficult to ensure the safety of water supplies through testing and management as in many cases, individual homes are fed by wells that can be contaminated. While generally only impacting small numbers of people, contamination of well water can still be dangerous not just for those individual well users, but also for other individuals with wells that tap into the same deep aquifers. The CDC recommends that well water should be tested annually for water borne illnesses but in many areas, especially agricultural communities, Nitrates and micro-organisms are known to contaminate well water through sewage and fertilizers.
This market of small town well water users is one that is of great interest to the WLC-Milwaukee iGEM team as it would be an ideal niche in which to implement our project and target as a market for our kit. There are currently a variety of biological contaminant test-kits on the market for private consumers to use in their own homes. Unfortunately, however, these test kits are marketed as requiring 24-48 hours until a result is ready.
The 2017 WLC-iGEM Team, specifically Elise Sloey, tested a variety of these test kits on the market using blind-study methods for whether a sample contained bacterial contaminants or was a control to determine the accuracy of these kits (see …. for more information on testing methods and results analysis). The results of this testing indicated that not only do many of these test kits require a significant amount of time, many of them are quite inaccurate (data table courtesy of WLC-Milwaukee iGEM 2017).
The cost-effective, time efficient method of water testing that the WLC iGEM team has been developing will make water testing more convenient for well owners increasing the likelihood that well owners will follow the CDC recommendation for annual water checks. Increased testing regularity and additional testing options may reduce infection risks by alerting consumers of possible contaminants before they reach dangerous levels.
Our team also investigated the need for water testing systems in developing countries where water sanitation regulation may be lacking.
In developing countries, water contamination is a more prevalent issue when compared to first world countries. In some developing countries, resources are often allocated for other issues besides water management and testing, so water contamination can be overlooked.
This often means that water testing is performed intermittently, if at all even on important potable water sources. If contamination is not accurately identified indicating some source, there are often few choices for remediation and individuals continue to be impacted. Without sufficient testing or proper education about water safety and the properties of bacterial infections, people continue to utilize potentially dangerous water supplies.
Besides testing and supply management, another vitally important component of ensuring safe water practice is education. People need to aware that unseen dangers reside in the waters they drink and use every day. Accepting the existence and understanding the dangers of microscopic organisms is difficult without prior education on the subject. Visual readout water testing can be an effective way to teach people about the contents of their drinking water.
We believe that our project will safely and effectively fill a variety of the gaps in current water testing and management practices that are globally significant. To confirm this belief and receive feedback that would help improve our project, we turned to a variety of experts in the water industry for help.
Over the course of our project, members of our team spoke with experts from The Water Council- an international non-profit organization dedicated to improving water stewardship and management.
In particular, we spoke with Dr. Barry Liner a technical advisor with The Water Council in a phone interview. We asked Dr. Liner questions regarding his opinion on the availability of water testing for consumers in developed and developing areas and what he sees as the primary current issues in water stewardship. It was indicated that water usage practices (including over-usage) in certain regions of the world, contamination of freshwater by poor usage in industry, and a lack of access to safe drinking water and water education were primary areas of concern to which solutions are desperately needed. While this information did not directly change the implementation of our project or its scope, it did reinforce our understanding of global needs for improved water management and testing practices.
Members of our team were also able to visit and tour the Milwaukee Municipal Sewer District wastewater treatment facility at Jones' Island, Milwaukee. This tour including the water effluent testing information, and first hand experience with the methods employed at large, successful, and developed wastewater treatment facilities allowed us to limit the scope of our project and strategies.
Throughout this experience, it was made very clear that the regulations, including those at the federal, state, and city level, for wastewater treatment facilities of this size (the MMSD Wastewater treatment facility at Jones' Island serves roughly 1.2 million people) very thoroughly cover nearly every imaginable form of water contamination. It was, however, noted that every year, this facility- with some of the best treatment practices in the country- still experiences overages wherein the facility cannot handle the incoming wastewater and dumps untreated waste into Lake Michigan, one of the largest usable bodies of freshwater in the world.
This type of contamination of Lake Michigan can negatively impact the millions of people that use its water for recreation in and around Milwaukee Wisconsin.
This interview and tour helped us better analyze the possible applications of our kit and although our test kit would not be applicable to use in such large facilities, in smaller scale wastewater treatment operations (such as the Lodi Wisconsin Wastewater Treatment facility visited and examined by the 2017 WLC-Milwaukee iGEM Team) effluent is still tested for fecal coliform contamination using overnight plate culture methods and we believe our test kit could provide a faster method for contaminant testing.
Yet another interview we were able to perform was with Mr. Dylan Waldhuetter the North American Program Director of the Alliance for Water Stewardship. Mr. Waldhuetter provided excellent feedback on our project and efforts along with encouragement that our project was needed to fill a niche in the water testing industry. Mr. Waldhuetter indicated that he saw our kit as a system that could be used, as we had previously examined, on a smaller scale especially in rural areas and communities where recreational water is rarely tested, and well water is often simply assumed to be uncontaminated. He also pointed out the our kit could be used in industry, but likely more as a preliminary test of effluent from processing plants or vegetable processing plants where E. coli contamination is a real concern. This insight aided our team in finding and confirming a niche for our product both as a small scale consumer test kit, but also as a preliminary system in industry applications.
Finally, during our testing of Horseradish peroxidase activity and possible substrates for our kit, we spoke with Dr. Robert Balza from the Biology department of our home institution regarding potential chromogenic subtrates. Dr. Balza indicated that he had used tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) as a chromogenic substrate in a wide variety of applications including Western Blotting and ELISA tests and provided our team with a substantial sample of TMB that we then used in our substrate and color changing experiments. This donation of substrate and advice was vital to our experiments and initial prototype testing and we greatly appreciate Dr. Balza's investment of resources and input to our project.
