(Waste)Water St. Report: Omicron Still Fading

The word on Water Street Tuesday was … water.

Waste water, to be exact. In the puddles outside of Cody’s Diner, where Yale Professor of Chemical & Environmental Engineering Jordan Peccia was getting his morning feta cheese fix. And in the sewage helping Peccia put out the good word that the Covid-19 Omicron variant is continuing to fade.

The good word was mixed with a sobering finding as well: New Haven’s sewage is proving that depression, at least measured by antidepressant use, is on the rise in the pandemic. And it was mixed with some intel on what flows from parking lots into the waste stream.

Peccia, who is 52, was passing by Cody’s after picking up wastewater samples from the East Shore Water Pollution Abatement facility, where he has traveled weekly since March 2020 to monitor Covid-19 levels across New Haven and Connecticut. 

After enjoying a feta cheese omelet — rather than his typical plate of home fries, which he ditched in the name of not public but personal health — Peccia was full of ideas to share as an impromptu guest on ​“Word on the Street,” a daily segment of WNHH FM’s ​“LoveBabz LoveTalk.”

“The word on the street is: SARS-CoV‑2 concentrations in the wastewater are running low, and Cody’s Diner makes a very good feta cheese omelet,” Peccia reported.

Before driving off to serve on a PhD student’s dissertation panel, Peccia remained on the mic to chat about poop, missiles, and creamy, creamy curds of cheese.

He shared two big findings of both the day and the year: Cody’s makes excellent eggs, and water tells all. 

At the beginning of the pandemic, Peccia was in Florida visiting his mother-in-law when the university called him and told him to fly back to New Haven — to dig through some deep shit.

“I always thought, ​‘Well, we’ll just probably detect it [Covid]. Who knows if we’ll be able to see anything about infections in the community?’” he recalled. 

Wastewater research has since become New Haven’s (and the nation’s) early-warning system about trends in the pandemic, showing ahead of other statistics when coronavirus variants are appearing, peaking, and declining. The process is also faster and cheaper than using molecular lab tests to unpack collective illness.

Beyond being one of the first indicators that Omicron had passed its peak weeks back, sewage and wastewater contain literal gold, Peccia reported.

In addition to traces of Covid-19 or remnants of feta cheese omelets, wastewater contains nitrogen, phosphorus, gold, silver, and platinum, said Peccia. 

“Anything you have, anything you use, is in there,” he said. 

For example, he said, the parking lot puddles outside of Cody’s will soon carry their own story of gasoline and discarded breakfast ingredients into nearby sewers and ultimately into his lab.

“We not only can measure things like SARS-CoV‑2 or any other diseases you might have that’s a pathogen, but any chemicals you use,” Peccia said.

“At the beginning of the pandemic, we knew that mental health was going to be an issue, because we were measuring antidepressant medication in the wastewater. And we were seeing the concentrations going up,” Peccia said.

Since taking on the Covid wastewater project, Peccia said, he has come to realize that while wastewater used to be the problem, today it’s the story and the solution. ​“We now realize it’s a resource,” Peccia said, rather than something to simply dispose of.

“While some municipalities will pay something like $500 – 600 a ton to get rid of their sewage sludge, there is about $300 – 400 worth of gold, platinum and precious metals in there,” Peccia said.

Peccia didn’t always have a passion for poop. As a child in Northern Montana, he spent his time studying chemistry, physics, engineering … and imagining a future in which he could build his very own bombs and missiles.

While in college, he shifted from mechanical engineering to civil and environmental engineering in hopes of contributing to more robust, sustainable, and healthy communities.

That course of study brought him from Montana to New Haven, where he discovered Cody’s, the new hot spot … for post-wastewater breakfasts.

Peccia noticed the diner months back while driving between his home and office because it was advertising warm slices of pie. He would always think of stopping in for a piece, but stayed en route out of fear of contracting Covid.

Eventually he allowed himself to meander on his way back from the waste treatment site and treat himself to a meal — because the wastewater told him it was safe to do so.

Still, he said, the future of the Covid panemic remains uncertain.

“Anyone who tells you they know exactly how long it’s going to go on doesn’t know,” Peccia asserted. Despite New Haven’s relatively high vaccination rate and immunity levels, variants can still create new surges.

Peccia’s most recent batch of water samples may be the most trustworthy source of information.

He promised to return to WNHH FM next week to report on what he discovers in those little mixtures of rainfall, Covid-19, and digested Cody’s breakfasts.

Click on the video to watch the full conversation with Jordan Peccia on the ​“Word On The Street” segment of WNHH FM’s ​“LoveBabz LoveTalk.”