BOWLING GREEN STATE UNIVERSITY

 
A weekly publication for the BGSU community

BGSU students Dan Lubin (left) and Christina Morgeneier (right), along with Dr. Robert Midden, collect water samples along Ohio 281 in southern Wood County.

Potential for water contamination is always among the biggest concerns of rural residents near concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), sometimes called “factory farms.”

In a project teaming BGSU with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Wood County Health Department, Bowling Green students are helping to develop new techniques intended to identify sources of bacteria in water from various county waterways.

Those sources can be humans and other animals as well as livestock, notes Dr. Robert Midden, chemistry and director of the Chapman Community. Students in the residential learning community are collecting the samples from different locations, which also include septic systems and municipal wastewater treatment plants. DNA analysis of the samples by the U.S. Geological Survey will tell whether there are specific DNA markers present that are unique to bacteria from the different sources, Midden explains. If those markers can be identified, he adds, they in turn can be used to identify contamination culprits.

Among the locations being monitored are select ditches and creeks upstream and downstream from fields where manure from dairy CAFOs is applied. Dairy-based pollution would be higher downstream from the farm, Midden points out, so if bacteria counts aren’t higher downstream, or if DNA markers indicate the bacteria isn’t coming from cows, the dairy probably isn’t the source.
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