Proud to announce that my work focusing on the presence of antibiotics in the soil at The Living Filter at Penn State has been recently published in a special section on Soil Chemistry and The One Health Initiative in the Journal of Environmental Quality. Find this Open Access article here.
Core Ideas:
- Antibiotics in the environment may pose ecological and health risks.
- Soil may be a natural filter due to its physical and chemical nature.
- Soil may help to prevent antibiotics from contaminating groundwater.
- Soil could provide a tertiary treatment for wastewater effluent.
Abstract
With low levels of human antibiotics in the environment due to release of wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluent, concern is rising about impacts on human health and antibiotic resistance development. Furthermore, WWTP effluent may be released into waterways used as drinking water sources. The aim of this study was to analyze three antibiotics important to human health (sulfamethoxazole, ofloxacin, and trimethoprim) in soil and groundwater at a long-term wastewater reuse system that spray irrigates effluent. Soil samples were collected (i) at a site that had not received irrigation for 7 mo (approximate background concentrations), and then at the same site after (ii) one irrigation event and (iii) 10 wk of irrigation. Water samples were collected three times per year to capture seasonal variability. Sulfamethoxazole was typically at the highest concentrations in effluent (22 ± 3.7 μg L−1) with ofloxacin and trimethoprim at 2.2 ± 0.6 and 1.0 ± 0.02 μg L−1, respectively. In the soil, ofloxacin had the highest background concentrations (650 ± 204 ng kg−1), whereas concentrations of sulfamethoxazole were highest after continuous effluent irrigation (730 ± 360 ng kg−1). Trimethoprim was only quantified in soil after 10 wk of effluent irrigation (190 ± 71 ng kg−1). Groundwater concentrations were typically <25 ng L−1 with high concentrations of 660 ± 20 and 67 ± 7.0 ng L−1 for sulfamethoxazole and ofloxacin, respectively. Given that antibiotics interacted with the soil profile and groundwater concentrations were frequently about 1000-fold lower than effluent, soil may be an adequate tertiary treatment for WWTP effluent leading to improved water quality and protection of human health.
So, as a returning adult student (undergrad and grad), I have a family and sometimes they have to come along when I need to be in the field on a weekend. Even the dog comes along sometimes! While this is a video from a few years ago…still one of my favorites! Bravo, our german shepherd, LOVING running through the wheat and notice one of my daughters playing on the back of the truck gate.
These fields are the location of my soil sampling that occurred in the summer of 2016 and some of the data will be published in a manuscript that will be part of a Journal of Environmental Quality special section on One Health and Soil! Keep your eyes open for an update once that manuscript is published!
Sometimes I just need a little pick me up to help with the writing process and coffee with whipped cream is my go to! I’m currently working on a manuscript for a Journal of Environmental Quality special section on One Health and Soil. I’m also starting to write my dissertation. So, I have a ton of writing that I’m doing right now and putting my laboratory work on hold until I submit this article! Dissertation will obviously be an ongoing effort until my Ph.D. is complete!
Look for updates later in the spring about this article! It is focused on my soil data of antibiotic concentrations with the premise that perhaps soil does help mitigate antibiotics from reaching groundwater! Groundwater quality is extremely important in many locations throughout the United States and the world, but especially important in central Pennsylvania since the groundwater is closely linked with surface waters in this area.
Coffee with whipped cream always makes writing better and more enjoyable!
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.
