Facilitating partnership and knowledge sharing amongst government, academia, NGOs, and industry is a laborious endeavor. Canadian Water Network (CWN), an independent not-for-profit organization, strives to build those connections to enable discussion of key water challenges. CEO of CWN, Bernadette Conant, founded the Canadian Municipal Water Consortium in 2009, which enables collaboration on critical drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater challenges. Since 2002, CWN has functioned as a key resource for water research and a platform for communication across the water sector.
The spread of COVID-19 – (more specifically, SARS-CoV-2) – has posed a strain on public and private resources and has led to the emergence of a new dialogue on epidemiology. Canadian municipalities, public health organizations, and universities are eager to know more about the spread and the potential control of it. Through conversation with CEO of CWN, Bernadette Conant shared the ways CWN is providing support by way of dedicating their resources to support national and international efforts to fill a gap in public health testing and surveillance through wastewater epidemiology.
ISSUES OF CONCERNS RELATED TO COVID-19 AND HOW CWN IS SUPPORTING MUNICIPALITIES AND UTILITIES TO ADDRESS THE IMPACTS
CWN has gone to great lengths to provide additional support to municipalities, utilities, NGOs, universities, and industries in the water sector throughout the spread of COVID-19. Conant identified four key actions that they have taken to share information, enable collaboration, and create a platform for open discussion. First, CWN is collecting reliable resources from around the world and sharing them with their network.
Second, in direct response to their members’ inquiries, CWN quickly pivoted their efforts to schedule a weekly national peer sharing conference call for municipal water utilities across Canada. The calls allowed the water utilities to discuss the day by day issues they are being confronted with; summaries of the calls have been made publicly available in order to share the discussions.
Third, CWN identified a need for a centralized system in Canada to coordinate wastewater-related COVID-19 research to best support public health decision-making. CWN is uniquely positioned to drive a coalition amongst researchers, municipalities, utilities, and local public health authorities. In order to connect Canadian groups with international peers and enable national coordination, CWN established the COVID-19 Wastewater Coalition.
Finally, CWN is focused on helping local leaders navigate the shifting environment as a result of the global pandemic. Conant asserted that the very nature of the system in which services are provided has been altered with a shifted perception of priorities, however, the needs of the population remain the same, and governments must continue to provide the same services. CWN is dedicated to easing this transition to ensure that the needs of Canadians continue to be met.
THE COVID-19 WASTEWATER COALITION
The Canadian Coalition on Wastewater-Related COVID-19 Research (COVID-19 Wastewater Coalition) is a collaboration of Canadian municipalities, utilities, researchers, public health organizations, and governments. Near the end of April, CWN released a draft framework to illustrate two possible decision applications of wastewater-related COVID-19 research. The first decision application is for wastewater surveillance to help determine the arrival, presence and spread of COVID-19 in the community, including in those not showing symptoms or only mild symptoms. The second decision application is for infectivity and exposure via wastewater, which would include risk assessments and the study of virus transport.
The national Research Advisory Group, which oversees the design of the program, determined that the Wastewater Coalition start by pursuing the first decision application. The second decision application reflects the concern that wastewater can spread the virus and risk infection and/or impact the environment. The Research Advisory Group has found little evidence to suggest that wastewater is a significant source of virus spread and infections. However, evidence has shown that traces of the virus – “genetic pieces” of COVID-19 – can be accurately identified through wastewater testing.
The research on applying wastewater-based epidemiology to COVID-19 is very new and emerging and most study releases are not yet peer reviewed. Given the importance of applying this work to public health decisions, it is important to look at it more rigorously in terms of validity and reliability of testing. But the body of emerging research is still convincing that there is real promise for wastewater-based epidemiology to help inform public health decision-making.
International efforts have already been made to estimate the presence of COVID-19 infections in a community through wastewater testing. Conant mentioned a study conducted by KWR Water Research Institute in the Netherlands that was able to accurately detect the presence of the virus through wastewater testing. Efforts from around the world have discovered that wastewater testing can identify community presence of asymptomatic and subclinical cases before the health care system is aware of their existence. Experts are hoping that wastewater testing could provide early warning of the presence of COVID-19 in a community and eventually help estimate an approximate number of cases present in a community.
Once the Research Advisory Group, chaired by Dr. Steve E. Hrudey, determined the initial focus of the COVID-19 Wastewater Coalition, they began working on the National Proof of Concept Pilot. The pilot is focused on wastewater-based surveillance of COVID-19 and must rapidly assess the techniques and determine how to make the most of the findings.
It was clear to Conant and Dr. Hrudey that Canada does not yet have a system in place to ensure consist methodology and centralize the findings of water-based surveillance research to enable public health authorities to utilize the information. The COVID-19 Wastewater Coalition was launched to create a mechanism to better share international learnings and ensure that Canadian research efforts and investments are better coordinated.
The National Proof of Concept Pilot is expected to be applied within the next six months since this is the period in which surveillance of COVID-19 is most important. As governments are looking to reopen communities and ease economic restrictions, COVID-19 surveillance is more critical than ever before.
WHO CAN PARTICIPATE IN THE COVID-19 WASTEWATER COALITION AND HOW?
Throughout the first phase of the pilot it is critical to identify opportunities for partnership; municipalities and utilities can sign on to the COVID-19 Wastewater Coalition to show their interest in participating. To create meaningful results, the COVID-19 Wastewater Coalition requires community interest, lab capacity, and buy-in from local public health authorities. Community leaders that are able to assist in the development of a partnership between their local municipality/utility and public health authorities should consider signing on to the COVID-19 Wastewater Coalition.
BERNADETTE CONANT is the CEO of Canadian water Network and is a trusted broker of water knowledge. Together with her team, she works to improve the application of water research to decisions for water management. In 2009, she founded the Canadian Municipal Water Consortium, whose members collaborate on critical drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater challenges. Bernadette is Vice-Chair of the board of directors for the Global Water research Coalition. She was appointed to a national expert panel on climate change adaptation by the Canadian Institute for Climate Choices. Bernadette also serves on the boards of Hydrogeologists without Borders and the Water Economics, Policy and Governance Network. Bernadette holds an MSc in hydrogeology from the University of Waterloo.
ERIN ORR, MA is a Research Analyst at the Public Sector Digest. She completed her master’s degree with Western University in Political Science, specializing in Canadian Policy and she is completing a certificate in Climate Change Policy and Practice from University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies. In her role at PSD, Erin’s research focuses on municipal sustainability as it relates to climate change adaptation and asset management. Recently, Erin led the research for a case study series on the integration of climate change and asset management in Canadian local governments in collaboration with CWN, CWWA, and FCM.
