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Hiding deep in the sprawling spiderweb of sewers across Allegheny County is the potential key to unlocking a major public health crisis — wastewater.
“Wastewater is a very rich source of information. It’s almost like our human activity is fingerprinted on our wastewater,” said Mariana Matus, co-founder of the MIT-born startup Biobot Analytics.
In association with Biobot, the county is about to complete its first year of wastewater testing in an effort to tackle the opioid epidemic. Twice a week, the county collects and Biobot analyzes the contents of the wastewater supply to monitor drug consumption levels as well as the substances in the current drug supply, according to the Department of Human Services.
“Government agencies and health care providers in Allegheny County have historically lacked real-time data on trends and changes in drug consumption in the county,” said Melissa Brock, a spokesperson for the county DHS.
Testing began in March 2024 at the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority’s water treatment facility just below the McKees Rocks Bridge. ALCOSAN provides wastewater treatment throughout the county.
“Our vision is to change public wastewater into public health observatories,” Matus said.
The county pays Biobot $47,000 per year for the testing and an interactive dashboard that compares the results to regional and national levels, Brock and Matus said.
In 2021, pharmaceutical companies and local governments reached a nationwide settlement of $1.07 billion for damages caused by the opioid epidemic. Allegheny County receives several million dollars per year as part of this settlement.
The funding for wastewater testing comes from the county’s opioid settlement funds, Brock said.
Wastewater testing gained traction in the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the county Department of Human Services.
“More data is always better,” Matus said. “It’s like a snapshot of what is happening in the last 24 hours, 48 hours or week.”
With this data, the county Health Department and health care providers can “reallocate treatment resources, introduce new interventions, improve targeted outreach to the community and coordinate responses with providers,” Brock said.
Results, she said, can also help detect the presence of new drugs like xylazine, also known as tranq.
While Brock said this initiative is aimed at helping support drug testing, harm reduction, and treatment approaches, she could not yet point to a specific instance when the data has been used to adjust or create new drug-related policies.
“In the absence of this data, we are caught triangulating against anecdote and waiting for trends to become clearer in medical examiner data,” she said.
Coroners and medical examiners are often the first line of defense to predict public health trends. In early 2020, medical examiners and coroners were some of the first groups to raise alarm bells about a deadly new viral infection, later identified as COVID-19.
For a local medical examiner or coroner to notice an emerging trend, multiple members of the community have to die from a specific ailment.
Wastewater testing is meant to catch trends before a slew of drug-related deaths occur, according to Biobot’s website
Biobot notes on its website that there is no way for them to track specific addresses where illicit substances are being used or identify an individual who has used illicit substances.
Some scientists have advocated for this testing to be done at a national level, but this could present challenges since water is often tested and monitored at the municipal level.
However, this has not deterred Biobot. In December 2023, the company announced it had developed partnerships with more than 70 wastewater treatment facilities across 43 states to test for drugs and overdose reversal agents.
“I think the technology can do so much more,” Matus said.
In the coming years, she said she hopes Biobot will expand its testing nationwide to include tests beyond COVID-19 and illicit substance use. The county plans to continue its relationship with Biobot, and will likely make the data publicly available later this year, Brock said.
