In an effort to help municipalities base their pandemic response decisions on accurate data, Geosyntec rapidly transformed its genetics testing laboratory, SiREM, from testing bacteria metabolizing environmental contaminants to testing virus RNA from SARS-CoV-2. Geosyntec’s diagnostic methods monitor SARS-CoV-2 virus in municipal wastewater and can provide an early indicator of the presence of virus before symptoms occur in the population.

As a result of these efforts, Geosyntec and SiREM received two of Environmental Business Journal’s Business Achievement Awards. The first, for Outstanding Business Performance in 2020 for COVID Response: Repurposing our Genetics Lab, and the second for Information Technology: Support for Data Driven Decisions. These recognitions are a testament to our clients’ proactive and innovative efforts to deploy tools to protect their communities and stakeholders.

We reached out to our municipal partners to share the news and to discuss their perspective on how our partnership provided benefit to their community.

As part of a data-driven plan to monitor for, and rapidly manage, cases of COVID-19 that are found among the college community, Keene State College formed a partnership with the City of Keene to monitor wastewater. Mary Ley, Laboratory Supervisor for the City of Keene, New Hampshire, chose to partner with Geosyntec for the testing based on the high-quality, affordable testing available and the strong technical support from our experts. She said, “Geosyntec helped our municipality develop data-driven decision-making tools and refine testing methods to protect our community and maximize stretched resources. The team was very helpful developing a testing strategy quickly so we could begin collecting data. The services were definitely the best value for our wastewater monitoring.”

Geosyntec works closely with municipalities to collect, analyze, and present sampling, testing, surveillance and monitoring data in an easily consumable fashion to support decisions that save lives and provide health officials with accurate and timely information to make decisions with confidence. Our approach is to monitor the sewer system for the flow-normalized presence and concentration of SARS-CoV-2 virus. Routine monitoring requires periodic grab or proportional composite samples along targeted areas of the collection system. The frequency of sampling may be adjusted based on the occurrence of the virus in the sewage and available reported COVID-19 cases and population data. Testing will help our clients understand how prevalent SARS-CoV-2 virus is in their facility or community.

In these challenging times, we understand we have clients at risk from the pandemic that are counting on us and on our lab to keep them and their residents, patients, coworkers, and students safe. We truly seek to make a difference.

As new challenges emerge, Geosyntec continues to innovate. Our SiREM lab now offers specific variant testing for mutations of the SARS-CoV-2 Virus the virus that causes COVID-19. We successfully launched monitoring programs for wastewater monitoring in municipalities, university campuses and communities across the country informing decisions makers of the prevalence of the virus in their community and the effectiveness of safety measures. Now, as vaccination programs are implemented and restrictions are lifted, wastewater surveillance has become a valuable tool to monitor the efficacy of vaccinations in communities and track reductions in prevalence. Simple sample collection and testing can also monitor the introduction of new variants and measure trends and prevalence in communities and on campuses to identify potential risks from virus mutations to quickly and inexpensively deliver information to community leaders and public health officials to support data-driven decisions.

More Information

Keene State College COVID-19 Data: https://www.keene.edu/featured/spring21/covid-19-dashboard/
About Keene: https://ci.keene.nh.us
About wastewater monitoring for COVID-19: https://www.geosyntec.com/COVID-19/sars-cov-2-wastewater-sampling-and-testing