AWRI Receives Grant to Test For SARS-CoV-2 virus in Waste Water

The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE), and The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services have a $10 million grant program for a three-month pilot program to fund local public health department efforts to coordinate with counties, universities, and other institutions across the state on COVID-19 wastewater testing programs.  AWRI is one of several recipients for this funding and will be working with Public Health Muskegon County, the Ottawa County Health Department, and EGLE to sample and test wastewater for genetic markers of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in samples from the two-county area. 

Wastewater testing is a reliable technique to monitor COVID-19 infections as infected individuals will shed the virus a week before clinical symptoms are observed.  Wastewater monitoring has the potential to serve as an early warning indicator and also the progress of the pandemic in a community.  The testing program locations will include on and off campus housing on the GVSU Allendale campus and selected lift stations in Muskegon County that represent flows from area municipalities.  Drs. Richard Rediske, Charlyn Partridge, and Kevin Strychar from AWRI have teamed with CMB faculty Shelia Blackman and Pei-Lan Tsou to set up labs in Muskegon and the Cook-DeVos Center for Health Sciences to extract viral RNA from the wastewater.  Partners also include the GVSU Facilities Department, Allendale Township, and Muskegon County Wastewater Management System.

The grant also provides a Digital Drop Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) instrument to conduct the analyses.  AWRI has been part of the Michigan PCR Laboratory Network for 6 years and is using quantitative PCR for beach monitoring and to determine the presence of animal and human DNA markers in recreational water.  This digital drop technology will greatly improve the sensitivity and throughput of the analyses and provides a versatile platform for future research involving the environmental testing of DNA and RNA markers.  The total grant award to GVSU is $500,000. 

Bopi Biddanda attended (virtually) the Sagan Lecture Seminar Series: Global Carbon Cycle, hosted by UC Berkeley, on October 1^st. https://applauncher.gotowebinar.com/#webinarOver/673817418392671248/en_US

Bopi Biddanda and Sean Woznicki attended (virtually) the Undergraduate Research Fair held by GVSU on October 6^th. Bopi represented the Michigan Space Grant Consortium, and Sean represented AWRI in designated Zoom rooms.

Bopi Biddanda, along with NOAA-GLERL, retrieved the Muskegon Lake Observatory buoy on October 27^th.

Jasmine Mancuso attended (virtually) a workshop titled “Algae Identification Workshop” taught by Drs. Rex Lowe and Justin Chaffin of Stone Laboratory, Ohio State University, on October 14^th – 15^th. https://ohioseagrant.osu.edu/education/stonelab/courses/s3osl/virtual-algae-identification-workshop

Charlyn Partridge has been attending the weekly Zoom meetings to discuss the COVID wastewater project. She and other AWRI collaborators are in the process of setting up the labs to begin this work. 

Rick Rediske represented the Wolverine Community Advisory Group meeting on October 15^th in a webinar and provided public comment on the perimeter well work plan to sample and analyze groundwater for PFAS.

Al Steinman attended community Board meetings for the West Michigan Symphony, Goodwill Industries of West Michigan, and GoodTemps in October.

Al Steinman participated in the monthly planning meeting on October 15^th for the Joint Aquatic Sciences Meeting scheduled to take place in May 2022 in Grand Rapids. Al and Mark are co-chairs of Local Arrangements.

Al Steinman participated in a planning meeting with WMSRDC, University of Michigan, MDNR, and EGLE to continue preparations for submitting an application to NOAA to create a NERR in west Michigan.

Al Steinman participated in a virtual meeting of the Great Lakes Advisory Board on October 29^th, when board members were provided their GLRI Charge Questions for 2020-2021.

Janet Vail attended a virtual meeting of the Muskegon Lake Watershed Partnership on October 6^th.

Janet Vail and Amanda Syers attended an “Environmental Studies and Sustainability” instructors meeting on October 8^th. A new section of their ENS 183, Sustainability as a lifestyle, course is being added for winter 2021 semester.

Janet Vail attended a virtual Cranbrook Freshwater Forum Advisory Committee meeting on October 16^th.  She previewed Cranbrook’s live virtual water festival during the week of October 19^th.  Forum chairperson, Jon Allan, indicated that Cranbrook is interested in facilitating another Great Lakes field course similar to the one that AWRI participated in last summer for the Johns Hopkins students.

Janet Vail and Amanda Syers were part of a MiRCLE climate conversations workshop on October 7^th.  They then attended the virtual Michigan Space Grant Consortium annual conference on October 17^th when the MiRCLE MSGC project they are working on was highlighted.

As chair of the West Michigan Clean Air Coalition (WMCAC), Janet Vail participated in the quarterly WMCAC meeting. Information about ozone exceedances in 2020 was presented along with updates on Holland, Muskegon, and Holland area outreach activities.

Janet Vail and Amanda Syers have been accepted into the North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE) Guidelines for Excellence Train-the-Trainer professional development series, which begins on October 26^th. This will allow them to conduct environmental education (EE) workshops to train participants on the use of the Guidelines for Excellence materials to promote and teach environmental education.

AWRI staff are bolded, undergraduate students are denoted with a single asterisk*, graduate students are denoted with two asterisks**, and post-doc researchers are donated with three asterisks ***.

Publications

Paige Kleindl, a former graduate student who worked with Al Steinman, had a manuscript, based on her thesis work, accepted for publication in Aquatic Botany.
Kleindl, P.** and A.D. Steinman. In Press. Long-term impacts of shoreline restoration on macrophyte and epiphytic algae communities. Aquatic Botany.

Molly Lane, a former graduate student who worked with Rick Rediske, had a manuscript, based on her thesis work, accepted for publication in Journal of Microbiological Methods.
Lane, M.J.**, R.R. Rediske, J.N. McNair, S. Briggs, G. Rhodes, E. Dreelin, T. Sivy, M. Flood, B. Scull, D. Szlag, B. Southwell, N.M. Isaacs, and S. Pike. In Press. A comparison of E. coli concentration estimates quantified by the U.S. EPA and a Michigan laboratory network using U.S. EPA Draft Method C. Journal of Microbiological Method. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mimet.2020.106086

Alan Mock, a former graduate student who worked with Carl Ruetz, had a manuscript, based on his thesis work, accepted to North American Journal of Fisheries Management.
Mock, A.J.**, C.R. Ruetz III, J.N. McNair, D. Mays, and A. Martell. In Press. Evaluating remote site incubators in Michigan streams: implications for Arctic Grayling reintroduction. North American Journal of Fisheries Management.

Emily Neuman, a graduate student working with Sarah Hamsher, published a short news article discussing her thesis research in The Michigan Riparian:
Neuman, E.** Star Wars on Pentwater Lake. The Michigan Riparian, 55:4.

Carl Ruetz, former graduate student Greg Chorak, and former post-doc Dave Janetski, were co-authors of an article now published in Journal of Great Lakes Research:
Senegal, T., C.R. Ruetz III, G.M. Chorak, D.J. Janetski, D.F. Clapp, G.J. Bowen, and T.O. Höök. 2020. Differential habitat use patterns of yellow perch Perca flavescens in eastern Lake Michigan and connected drowned river mouth lakes. Journal of Great Lakes Research, 46: 1412-1422.

Presentations

AWRI was represented at the annual Michigan Space Grant Consortium fall conference held virtually on October 17^th.
Bopi Biddanda chaired a session of the conference titled “Earth and Environment”.
AWRI attendees were: Bopi Biddanda, Sarah Hamsher, Megan Mader, Jasmine Mancuso, Emily Neuman, Ian Stone, Amanda Syers, Janet Vail, and Jonathan Walt.
Presentations at the conference by AWRI personnel were:
Biddanda, B. and A. Weinke. First tango: mat world microbes synchronize their migration to a diurnal tempo.
Hamsher, S. and D. Casamatta. Sinkhole microbial communities: documenting diversity of these unique environments.
Mader, M.**. Chlorophyll-a and land cover in eastern Lake Michigan: preliminary results.
Mancuso, J.**, A. Weinke, I. Stone*, S. Hamsher, M. Woller-Skar, E. Snyder, and B. Biddanda. Bloom or bust: long and short term drivers of phytoplankton blooms in Muskegon Lake, a Great Lakes estuary.
Neuman, E.** Preliminary results - star wars: phenology of starry stonewort (Nitellopsis obtusa) in two Michigan drowned river mouth lakes.
Stone, I.* and B. Biddanda. Breathless: Muskegon Lake hypoxia and its drivers in the 2010s.
Walt, J.**. Wetlands in time and space: mapping inundation dynamics and connectivity with remote sensing.

Charlyn Partridge gave a presentation for the AWRI virtual seminar series. The title of the presentation was “Bridging the past: combining herbarium and molecular data to understand successful plant invasions”.

Janet Vail gave a presentation at the GLOBE 2020 Virtual North American Regional Meeting (NARM) on October 19^th. The topic was “Hydrology data sources to supplement GLOBE data”. The Muskegon Lake Observatory was highlighted. The NARM took place from October 19^th – 23^rd.

No awards for October.  Please check back next month.

Bopi Biddanda received a NOAA/UM CIGLR subcontract for a proposal titled “Probing the composition and age of vent water in Lake Huron’s sinkholes” in the amount of $14,000 for the calendar year 2021. 

Rick Rediske and others from AWRI obtained $500,000 in grant funds from EGLE to test for the SARS-CoV-2 virus in wastewater.

AWRI In The News

“Improving our water resources: Point-source & nonpoint-source pollution”
Near North Now, October 4, 2020
AWRI is mentioned as authoring the Muskegon River Watershed Management Plan in 2002.

“Studies from Annis Water Resources Institute have provided new data on invasive species (Examining the molecular mechanisms contributing to the success of an invasive species across different ecosystems)” 
NewsRx Life Science Daily, October 8, 2020
This article is a summary of a recently published article by Sarah Lamar, former graduate student at AWRI.  Charlyn Partridge, her MS advisor, was a co-author.

“Three candidates, including incumbent, face off in Kent County drain commissioner’s race.”
MLive, October 19, 2020
Elaine Isely, Democratic candidate for this seat, was a GVSU graduate and worked at AWRI in the past.

“3 vie for Kent County drain commissioner”
Grand Rapids Press, October 20, 2020
Elaine Isely, Democratic candidate for this seat, was a GVSU graduate and worked at AWRI in the past.

LMC Events

There were no events held at the LMC this month.