Fulton is participating in an effort by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources to spot signs of COVID-19 in wastewater.
"We're taking samples at the wastewater plant, the prison and the (Fulton State Hospital), and dropping them off with the state," said Darrell Dunlap, Fulton's utilities superintendent, during a Monday Utility Board meeting.
The DNR first launched the project in Columbia thanks to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity grant through the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, according to a June news release on the DHSS website.
The idea for the project came from studies in the Netherlands, Italy and United States that found a direct correlation between the amount of viral material in sewage and the number of reported cases within a given "sewershed," or the area that drains into a community's wastewater collection system.
The current project uses samples taken from wastewater in an attempt to estimate the caseload in the area, Dunlap said. Hypothetically, the more genetic markers of SARS-CoV-2 shows up in a sample, the more cases are in the area.
The DNR supplied two wastewater sampling devices to Fulton, and the city provided a third, he said.
"The samplers take a bit of water once an hour every hour for 24 hours," Dunlap explained. "It's called a composite sample."
Then, once a week, the city brings the samples to the DNR. Fulton joined the project at the end of July, according to Dunlap.
While the virus that causes COVID-19 is new, using wastewater for tracking disease is not a new technique, the DNR wrote. In the past, wastewater testing has proven useful in tracking diseases such as polio and norovirus, and could be a valuable tool for SARS-CoV-2 surveillance. The virus is shed in human feces and can be detected in wastewater by testing for specific genetic markers.
"This sewage testing can provide additional, population-level information about the presence and amount of virus in a community that is not captured by testing patients," Jonathan Garoutte, Administrator of DHSS's Section for Environmental Public Health wrote in the June press release. "People can be infected for up to 14 days before showing any symptoms, and they may not get tested. This testing can provide early awareness for local public health agencies and help direct testing and resources that protect public health."
Dunlap said once DNR starts getting testing results back, the city will be able to access them via a database.
Other business
Monday's meeting lacked a quorum of Utility Board members, so no votes could be taken.
Board members did discuss an ongoing issue with the city's two roll-away containers for yard waste, located at the Tennyson Road and Westminster Avenue fire stations. Fulton's residential waste customers may use the bins for free. But it's not only residential customers who are using the bins, according to Fulton Director of Administration Bill Johnson.
"A lot of commercial entities are getting paid to cut down a tree, and they're putting the waste there instead of hauling it to Bluebird (Composting)," Johnson said. "Some weeks we're pulling the bins two times a day."
People using the bins also frequently pile debris next to them instead of inside, he added.
Monitoring the containers isn't practical, Johnson said. Instead, the city is in the early stages of working out a deal with Bluebird Composting, a commercial composter located just outside Fulton, wherein residents could go drop off their yard waste with Bluebird. Neither the details nor the deal have been finalized.
"We'll still do curbside yard waste pick-up," Johnson added.