DENVER — In north Denver, there is a literal river of wastewater.
About 130 million gallons of it are treated every day at Metro Water Recovery’s Robert W. Hite wastewater treatment facility. That treated water is then sent back into the South Platte River. Some of the sewage, however, is taken out and tested instead.
“Wastewater-based epidemiology has been around for a long time, but since COVID, it's really taken off,” said Natalie Love, laboratory research manager for Metro Water Recovery.
Colorado health officials are testing wastewater for COVID-19 and other infectious diseases like RSV and the flu. Now, the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment (DPHE) is also looking for signs of drug use, specifically opioids, like fentanyl and xylazine, and drugs like cocaine and meth.
Through a partnership with Metro Water Recovery, the city is collecting weekly samples of the wastewater that represents about 750,000 people across the metro. Those samples are broad and cannot point to specific neighborhoods or households, Love said.
“I think it's just really cool that you can see as much as we can see with just a single water sample,” she added.
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The samples are then sent to Biobot Analytics, which uses a lab in Massachusetts to analyze the samples and send back data.
“We're able to see over time, based on the weekly samples, if there's higher or lower levels of specific substances in the wastewater,” said Marie Curran, Opioid Abatement Funds Program coordinator for DDPHE. “We’re able to kind of track that over time too, and see if there are trends based on the time of year or after certain events.”
The city, though, is not yet releasing any data or trends to the public.
“We want to make sure that there's enough context around what [the data] means,” said Curran.
Denver is only about halfway through a three-year pilot program funded by opioid crisis settlement money. Curran said the city’s received roughly $24 million of that money already, but this project only costs about $50,000 a year.
Curran said the cost-effective program could be scaled up if the Denver Opioid Abatement Council or DDPHE decides they want to do so.
She also clarified that the wastewater data is just one layer of many to look at when looking at solutions for the opioid crisis. However, it could be a layer that allows officials to track spikes in drug use before they become known through hospital visits and overdose deaths.
“There's a wealth of data out there that we're trying to lay over to just get a better picture overall,” said Curran. “The more we understand overdose trends and drug use trends, the more hopefully we can respond as a public health department and as a community.”
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