The Utilities Committee met 08/23/2022. The meeting was very brief, clocking it at under 10 minutes.
The four action items on the agenda were all approved with no questions or discussion.
The item that involved the most discussion was the Wastewater Covid-19 Report.
Utilities Director Chris Shaw told the committee that the Utilities Department receives this information weekly. In conjunction with the Wisconsin State Lab of Hygiene, they collect samples from the wastewater treatment plant which were then analyzed.
He drew the committee’s attention to the final page of the report which showed the different levels over the weeks at various wastewater treatment facilities across the state.
Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2) thought it was interesting that the wastewater samples trended higher than number of positive tests in the community. “I think that this is a really important piece of data, and I think it’s been very helpful throughout for this to be available for health departments to be able to look at.”
Director Shaw agreed and noted that wastewater-driven technology was being used in response to the recent polio outbreaks in the US. Wastewater sampling allowed them to identify the presence polio in a community before anything else. He thought it was neat technology that they were on the verge of using to look at public health in a different way.
Alderperson Meltzer said, “I think it’s really exciting to see the benefits of new technologies that we weren’t able to avail ourselves of in the past.”
Alderperson Brad Firkus (District 2) thought it was incredible and always interesting to see overlaps between two different areas such as, in this case, public health and utility work.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=959284&GUID=29B5BA66-2994-4144-844A-AE8608552FBF
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