Grant: Strategic Projects - Group

This proposal addresses the necessity of developing an early-warning strategy to detect potential threats to drinking water sources. Natural bodies of water that ultimately constitute some of Canada's drinking water supply can contain a variety of pollutants such as heavy metals, PAHS, halogenated organic molecules, pharmaceuticals, pathogens, etc. While the associated health risks of some of these components are already known, there remains an alarming lack of research in many other areas. Our proposal will develop an innovative approach to assessing the potential toxicity of waterborne contaminants before these deleterious constituents reach drinking-water facilities. We will use a holistic, multi organism-based system to measure stress reactions in the aquatic community and will monitor these stress responses in real-time. We will also develop ecotoxicity models based on dose-responses of individual organisms to specific classes of stressors (chemical and biological). These models will aid in the interpretation of the data and will provide information for water-utilities managers about the nature of the stressor. Also, this knowledge will be useful in strategies to minimize risk to end-users. The ultimate goal of our proposal is the development and implementation of an early-warning system in real-time for drinking-water facilities that would detect chemical contaminants and pathogens using biomonitoring organisms. In order to achieve this, our project will: 1) measure responses in aquatic plants and invertebrates to chemical stressors at environmentally-relevant concentrations and to pathogens; 2) develop a microarray-based test that can be used to directly detect pathogenic organisms; 3) build and test a flow-through system in a drinking-water facility for stress-response determinations in real-time; 4) develop methods of stereotyped responses for the whole suite of biomonitoring organisms to chemical contaminants and pathogens. These models will be used to predict the nature of contamination when responses are observed among the organisms. These models will ultimately form the basis of the early-warning system to monitor potential toxicity of chemical and biological agents in real-time at drinking-water facilities.