Recently released in the current Chesapeake Research Consortium newsletter, an article featuring my most recent publication in the Journal of Environmental Quality. We were contacted about this article because the CRC likes to feature research being done at their Partner Institutions. The CRC works at enabling its member institutions and the broader scientific community in the region to contribute effectively toward better understanding and management of Chesapeake Bay and its watershed. This work was featured because it focuses on the capability of soil for mitigating contaminants, specifically antibiotics, from reaching the groundwater system. The Living Filter at Penn State is located within the Chesapeake Bay watershed and the groundwater in this area is closely linked to surface waters. Soil as a natural filter has many applications for preserving and protecting this watershed!
http://chesapeake.org/2018/11/06/antibiotics-at-the-living-filter/?fbclid=IwAR1LAAzchwF-SiU83pPsi4jNTLgZtOzRwMqs-gufY-q7O-kMR9yOfvmFy4Q
I found an article written for Envirobites. I was unaware of this article, but it is very well written and does a great job of talking about the issues with antibiotics in the environment and the research that we are doing! Always a humbling moment to realize that your work is important enough to be newsworthy!
https://envirobites.org/2018/10/09/can-soil-help-remove-antibiotics-from-wastewater-effluent/
First international travel and I’m in Cyprus to give a presentation at Xenowac II: Challenges and Solutions related to Xenobiotics and Antimicrobial Resistance in the Framework of Urban Wastewater Reuse. I was very excited to have my presentation accepted as an oral presentation, because I finally had additional antibiotic resistance data (genes) that I felt was important to share. I have more data analysis to perform, but it appears that at The Living Filter site for a sulfonamide resistance gene, the quantities are higher than at a control site (not receiving effluent irrigation nor manure applications). In fact, it looks like this increase in antibiotic resistance genes at the Living Filter may be a long term impact. The site has been used for over 40 years to date, and I have not found research on a long term reuse site like this one. Great information to have. I have other resistance genes that I am analyzing, so will be interesting to see if this trend continues.
Presenting at XENOWAC II
Gave a tour of Rock Springs Research Farm to some visiting scientists today and found this perched water table! Really interesting thing about it is that not even 20 feet away, you find that there isn’t a perched water table when you dig down into the profile. Our soil is very interesting here, where we will have accumulations of clay that form and not allow water to drain down the soil profile adequately. It still amazes me how the soil can be so different between locations so close together!
These small scale differences are why soil sampling for analyzing antibiotics and antibiotic resistance in bacteria is extremely hard! You never know if you are capturing enough detail and data to actually represent what is happening within your given system.
You can find more information about the Research Center at Rock Springs here.
Distance between the location with a perched water table and the location without a perched water table.
Location in a field with a perched water table.
Location without a perched water table.
