LIMA, Ohio (WLIO) - The city of Lima Wastewater Treatment Plant, along with 75 other treatment plants in the state, is part of a monitoring network that formed during the pandemic.
Wednesday was pickup day for a sample of the city’s raw wastewater, which will be tested for infectious disease fragments. The sample is taken to a lab near Toledo to determine trends for three specific diseases. The monitoring enables early detection of trends for influenza, COVID-19, and RSV. The treatment plant takes a sample every 15 minutes, and more than 18 million gallons of wastewater passed through the plant on Tuesday.
"Samples are taken out in the plant; it's a 24 hour composite from the previous day," said Amy Staley, Industrial Monitoring and Laboratory Chief. "So our samplers run for 24 hours, midnight to midnight, we will take that sample from yesterday. Today's [Wednesday] that was poured up was actually yesterday's sample, and it gets put into the container and then sent to the Ohio Department of Health."
The latest statistics show Lima with an increasing trend of influenza at a high level. COVID-19 is trending steady at a moderate level, and RSV is at a low level.
"It's us voluntarily helping the state, and it's for a good cause, said Mike Caprella, Director of Utilities for the City of Lima. "I think it benefits everybody, and there's no real, no cost to the city, but we do participate in."
Data from the wastewater monitoring network is available on a dashboard on the Ohio Department of Health’s website: www.odh.ohio.gov/know-our-programs/ohio-wastewater-monitoring-network. The latest statistics show Lima with an increasing trend of influenza at a high level. COVID-19 is trending steady at a moderate level, and RSV is at a low level.
