Montville ― The town’s Water Pollution Control Authority, which tracks the number of COVID-19 particles in sewage that comes into the town’s treatment plant from four different towns, has determined there was a spike in COVID-19 infections from October to November.

The data is consistent with a recent report from a Norwich Public Utilities plant, Patrick McCormack, director of Uncas Health District, said Wednesday.

The WPCA treatment plant collects sewage from Montville, New London, Groton and parts of Norwich, McCormack said. Norwich Public Utilities sewer system covers most of Norwich.

The data from both reports indicates throughout the month of November, New London County exceeded the national average in terms of the number of virus particles in its sewage, McCormack said, with the caveat that the data is limited to the four previously- mentioned towns.

Back in February, the Montville Water Pollution Control Authority had entered into a no-cost partnership with Biobot Analytics that allows them to check the wastewater coming into the treatment plant for COVID-19 viral bits, or fragments of the virus.

Those checks are performed weekly, according to the Montville WCPA’s administrator and superintendent Derek Albertson. He said Wednesday that the data suggests an increase in the presence of new variant BA 2.86 — which is becoming prevalent in the Northeast — in the county’s population.

“It’s really a tool for us to gauge whether there’s an increase occurring. And then, much of what we do is use it as a tool of education for the community, and for our staff,” McCormack said about the weekly checks.

He recommended that people continue to speak with their doctors if they feel sick, wash their hands frequently, get tested and follow the guidance of the CDC if they have been exposed.

Meanwhile, those with preexisting health conditions or who are members of older populations exercise more caution and continue to monitor these trends, especially as the holiday season continues and people are traveling and gathering more frequently, he said.

“And there’s many different things that people could be suffering from with similar symptoms,” McCormack said. “So if people aren’t feeling well they should consider talking to their physician and having a test, so they don’t make others sick.

The relatively new practice of sewage surveillance to help predict outbreaks

Medical surveillance is a relatively new practice among wastewater treatment plants, Albertson said, and though detecting COVID-19 is the priority right now, the surveillance can be used to detect a wide range of other contaminants.

Montville’s treatment plant was one of the first in the state to start surveilling COVID-19 trends from the sewage, Albertson said, beginning with a partnership with two students in a graduate program at the University of Connecticut in 2021.

After the conclusion of that program, the plant partnered with Biobot to begin monitoring COVID-19 trends in the incoming wastewater full time, he said. Biobot is not charging them anything for the partnership.

Biobot has a proprietary technique for extracting the virus from a certain volume of wastewater sample that allows it to tell the amount of particles in that volume, Albertson said, and the company makes graphs based on that data.

“It’s very exciting for me because we’re doing more than cleaning the waste. Now we’re doing surveillance as well. This is another avenue for public health protection, by monitoring or surveilling the influent,” Albertson said.

The incoming supply, or influent, of sewage at Montville’s treatment plant is roughly 2 million gallons per day, he said. The plant establishes a baseline COVID-19 particles, then monitors for increasing or decreasing concentrations of those particles.

What does the future of surveillance hold?

The future goal of the surveillance is to be able to predict significant outbreaks, Albertson said, and eventually, for the wastewater treatment plants to be able to monitor for a much broader range of contaminants.

The surveillance could raise an interesting civil liberties issue in the future, he added, “if you did get to a point where you’re monitoring specific neighborhoods for COVID or for drugs.”

For example, Albertson said, Biobot is already working with treatment plants in New Castle County, Delaware to detect nicotine, cocaine and methamphetamine in incoming sewage supplies.

d.drainville@theday.com