NEW Water - The brand of the Green Bay Metropolitan Sewerage District - 2021 Annual Report - Report - Page 6
COVID-19 in Wastewater
Protecting Public Health
In 2021, NEW Water continued to participate
in the Wisconsin COVID-19 in wastewater
study, by sending in samples on a weekly
basis from both the Green Bay and De Pere
Facilities. The project is a collaboration
between the Wisconsin Department of
Health Services, Wisconsin State Lab of
Hygiene, and the University of WisconsinMilwaukee. This monitoring allows health
and community leaders to detect levels of
COVID-19 in a community.
“If you had told me five years ago that
wastewater could help monitor a pandemic,
I would have told you it was science fiction,”
said Executive Director, Tom Sigmund.
“Scientific knowledge has advanced
significantly, and we are proud to be a part
of it.”
Brown County Health Department and area
health officials have lauded NEW Water
for participation in the study, citing the
importance of the data for local decisionmakers. NEW Water staff had the vision
to begin collecting samples in April 2020,
before the project even existed.
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NEW Water’s involvement in the Wisconsin
COVID-19 Wastewater Surveillance Program
has been critical for the success of this effort.
Early in the pandemic, they were one of the first
wastewater agencies to send us samples so we could
optimize methods. Having the two NEW Water plants in
addition to our Milwaukee samples gave us a range of
sample types so we could be sure our methods would
work more broadly. Throughout this pandemic, they have
been great partners.
~ Dr. Sandra McLellan, of the University of WisconsinMilwaukee School of Freshwater Sciences