AUGUSTA, Maine — "I think it's pretty important to estimate these trends before they show up," Phyllis Rand of the Greater Augusta Utility District said.
From July through last week, the Greater Augusta Utility District used grant money from the Keep Maine Healthy fund to send water samples to BioBot in Boston, a lab where they test the samples for the prevalence of COVID-19.
Their samples came from the five towns they serve: Augusta, Hallowell, Manchester, Monmouth, and Winthrop.
The grant covered testing from July through last week. That funding has since run out but Rand believes testing wastewater can be vital to controlling the spread of COVID-19.
Over the course of testing, the number of new cases remained low.
"The biggest change was on October 13 when the laboratory estimated a number of new cases between 1 and 5," she said.
Here's how it works: COVID-19 is shed in the stool of those who are infected and it makes its way to the local wastewater facility.
Samples are collected and sent to a lab.
"If we're able to identify specific campuses that have an increase in virus fragments in the wastewater that can trigger us to have much more individual testing or what's called amplified testing," Robert Wheeler, Associate Professor of Microbiology at the University of Maine Orono said.
CES Engineering, a Brewer company, is collecting samples at the University of Maine campuses in Fort Kent, southern Maine, and Orono.
Some students in Orono are conducting the tests at their lab. So far, they haven't detected any prevalence of the virus.
"We've been very very lucky," Wheeler said.
They are looking to expand this to surrounding communities, like the entire Orono community.
On another campus, Saint Joseph's College in Standish, this testing has been "instrumental."
Oliver Griswold, head of brand and marketing for the college, said they are using this wastewater testing system campus-wide and it has helped them identify cases early to prevent the spread.
When Saint Joseph's detected an outbreak at the beginning of September the wastewater was the first indication.
They were able to identify the building it was coming from and caught it early enough that they were able to catch a mini outbreak that spawned two more cases but traced and stemmed that outbreak very quickly.
So far, that campus has had 11 cases in all.
