200 in 2016, according to Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection<\/a> — the streams needed to pass by farmland.<\/p>\nFarm animals and animals, in general, are often the source of the contamination. So Clausen started in the Thames river Basin, initially picking more than 30 sites and then narrowing that number down to 10 streams.<\/p>\n
Once the sites were chosen, Clausen installed a type of water sampler at each location to collect samples whenever there is a significant rainfall event.\u00a0\u201cWhen you get one-to-two inch storms, you really get high E. coli <\/em>values,\u201d says Clausen.<\/p>\nTo help with the collection efforts, the researchers coordinated volunteers to collect and deliver the water samples from all of the sites after heavy rain events. Clausen says they\u2019ve become very good at watching the weather to determine when to collect samples.<\/p>\n
Then the samples with high contamination are sent to a lab to quantify the level of coliform bacteria from animal sources.<\/p>\n
Now Clausen is designing tests for E. coli <\/em>specifically. He and his team of student researchers are developing tests for chicken, horse, cow and human sources. The process involves collecting fecal samples, isolating the bacteria and their DNA, pinpointing species specific markers to target and then working out the fine details to optimize the tests.<\/p>\n\u201cWe are now in the statistics part of development. This winter we\u2019ll be sequencing to see how well our tests match up with the bacteria in the water samples,\u201d says Clausen.<\/p>\n
The overall goal is to identify producers and sources of contamination so remediation efforts can be put in place. Clausen points out that we already have best practices to reduce E. coli<\/em> in our waterways from agricultural sources, manure management being one of those. When manure is not handled properly, for example, bacteria-rich runoff can easily make its way into our waterways.<\/p>\n\u201cJust storing manure in holding tanks is very effective. There is a die-off period for pathogens, after which the manure can be spread more safely,\u201d Clausen says.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately for farmers, holding tanks are pricey and other best practices are not always easy to carry out.<\/p>\n
But fortunately in the case of E. coli<\/em>, unlike that for other types of runoff such as fertilizers, the E. coli<\/em> that make their way into the watershed don\u2019t seem to persist for quite so long.<\/p>\nOnce bacterial source tracking is available and sources of contamination are identified, remediation efforts could potentially have a big impact on returning streams to safe levels fairly quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve already had officials ask if we can start testing,” says Clausen. “We\u2019re not there yet, but I think we\u2019re close.\u201d<\/p>\n
This research is funded by the United States Department of Agriculture, grant number 68-1106-16-965.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UConn Professor John Clausen is designing a system to identify upstream contamination sources so they can be addressed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":118,"featured_media":133657,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2231,2387],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2093],"class_list":["post-133555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-well-being","category-sustainability"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-13 05:19:18","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/118"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133555"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133658,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133555\/revisions\/133658"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/133657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133555"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=133555"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=133555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Professor](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Conantville2v2-225x300.jpg\")