Integrated Human Practices

The Value of Effective Water Treatment

Effective water treatment has been one of the primary advances towards improved human health in the modern era. Nutrient loading in local water sources is a worldwide problem, with harmful algal blooms (HABs) near human population centers a significant expense globally. In the United States, the CDC reported 242 HABs from 14 states. 53% had toxins, and 75% of blooms were in freshwater.

Most HABs are caused by excess nutrients (organic nitrogens and phosphorus) flowing into the water, specifically from fertilizer rich runoff from lawns, agriculture, and municipal wastewater. In our conversations with local experts, they pointed to both of these sources as main causes of blooms in Utah Lake.

Utah Lake is a local lake here in Utah County that has annual HABs. Some, or all, of Utah lake, at the time of writing, has been under a constant Warning Advisory by the Utah Lake Authority, which advises against being in the water at all. Many humans and animals have been sickened by cyanobacteria toxins, and while no humans have died, pets and wildlife deaths have happened.

Our Focus

Given that most algal blooms are caused by excess nutrients, our focus has been on decreasing nutrients in one of the main sources: municipal wastewater. Water treatment plants use a variety of methods worldwide, with the most common method being allowing water to slow so that debris and particulates sink to the bottom. Unfortunately, this most common method does not decrease nutrients in the water at all. Here in Utah, our wastewater treatment plants that flow into Utah lake have legal limits for phosphorus and nitrogen, but few of them are actually meeting their limits.

Current methods for reducing nutrients include using heterotrophic microorganisms to pull nutrients out of the water and monitoring the makeup of organisms to make sure they are in correct proportions. These organisms also need a constant source of food, as well as oxygenated and deoxygenated sections, in a complicated procedure involving water flowing in multiple sections. But we see a better way.

Algae as water treatment

Algae are currently used in some water treatment facilities worldwide, and one specific facility here in Utah. Algae is an effective option because they pull the nitrogen and phosphorus out of the water needing only carbon dioxide as a carbon source. If grown in sunlight and in batches, it has the capability to be significantly more cost effective than more common methods. Algal systems also have the possibility of removing other potential contaminants because of the proclivity of algae to act as a biological cleansing agent.

Our Project

We do not have millions of dollars to build algal water treatment facilities, or to build storm water systems that pull fertilizer waste out of lawn and agricultural runoff, so we decided to make small improvements that are possible for our team, which is to improve the nutrient capture capabilities of the green algae, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, as a model for future algal and plant based water treatment. C. reinhardtii is a very good chassis for our project, as it has been used for genetic engineering before, but it also has a cell wall, making it a good model for other algae and plants.

Our project focused on increasing the capability of C. reinhardtii to absorb and store phosphorus and nitrogen.

Ideal use

Our project would not be deployed directly into Utah Lake as we do not want to introduce new organisms, especially a genetically modified organism, into a natural environment. Our project would ideally be deployed within water treatment facilities, and our green algae would never leave the facility. All water treatment facilities in Utah county use UV radiation to kill all microbes before they can enter the lake, and that should be sufficient to prevent our algae from ever leaving the treatment facilities. Additionally, we would use an auxotrophic strain of our algae which would be unable to produce a specific chemical, which we could then add to the water to keep them alive in the treatment facility, but render them unable to stay alive in the natural environment. An example of this kind of strain can be found in Freudenberg et al.’s 2022 publication.

Public Opinion

Utah Lake has been the topic of much discussion in Utah County over the past couple years, with many people proposing and debating solutions to the general problem, but one thing that most people agree on is that there is a problem. 76.6% of Utah County residents agree that there is a problem with the lake and something should be done, Almost no Utah County residents (4.5%) would choose to visit Utah Lake for recreation over other, further away, lakes.

While we did not do an official survey, we have told hundreds of people about our plan and goal to clean up Utah Lake, and the general response has been overwhelmingly positive. Most people seem to agree that Utah Lake is in need of fixing, and people expressed a lot of approval about the idea of reducing toxic algal blooms by reducing nutrients flowing into the lake.

Contacts/Outreach

EPA - We reached out to the Environmental Protection Agency to better understand the laws around genetically modified organisms. They helped guide us on usage of GMOs in specific scenarios and helped shape our understanding of the laws around using GMOs in the wild.

Division of Water Quality Utah - They monitor water quality levels around Utah and help keep our water safe. They put us in contact with Clearas and the South Davis Sewage District, which are implementing algae treatments into water treatment.

Professor Ben Abbott @ BYU - Talked about his research around Utah Lake and where the excess nutrients are coming from. Water treatment plants remove ammonia, but they have no measurements for phosphates and nitrates, allowing those nutrients out into the lake. He talked about how these nutrients are stored in the lake, both dissolved directly in the water and also as precipitate which gets stirred up in the lake water due to the shallow nature of the lake.

Professor Weihong Wang - Professor Wang met with us and gave us information about the wildlife composition of the lake, including the invasive species currently taking over the lake. She also presented about research she has been doing sampling lake locations for nutrients throughout the year, on the legal requirements of phosphorus and nitrogen on local water treatment facilities, and how close they get to meeting those requirements.

Clearas - Clearas is a company currently using algae as a tertiary treatment for water treatment plants. They informed us on how they operate, and how they achieve such high rates of nutrient removal, as well as the complications arising from their treatments. The information they gave us helped us shape our organism for future use.

South Davis Sewer District - They are currently implementing the algae treatment from Clearas at their facility. The algae works well with the commercial runoff, but the treatment can’t be well implemented into industrial water treatment due to copper in the industrial water.

doTERRA - They are a local business which has worked closely with the school’s science programs. They have funded many scientific projects here at UVU, so we presented to them our project to help them to know that their money is being spent well. They were impressed and approved of our project and its goals, and we had multiple meetings with executives to discuss the project and future directions of our research.

Orem Water Treatment Plant - They gave us a tour of their facilities, and explained in detail how they treat municipal wastewater to decrease contaminants and nutrients. Orem wastewater treatment involves removing large waste through filters, removing smaller particulates through slow moving water pools and skimmers, then using microbes to perform biological nutrient removal involving deoxygenated and oxygenated steps to decrease nutrients (this produces solid waste that is dried and compressed to sell as fertilizer, and methane that is burned to help power the facility), finally all water is sterilized using UV radiation before being allowed to flow into the lake.

Timpanogos Special Service District - They also gave us a tour and presentation, and while their facility is larger and cleans more water, they are not quite as efficient as the Orem facility. That being said, they follow all of the same water treatment steps, except they do not sell or use the waste from their microbes.

Utah Lake Festival - There were multiple advocates for saving the lake from toxic algal blooms that the team was able to network with. We spoke with the Utah Lake Commission, the Department of Natural Resources, and various scientists studying the lake. These groups recommended getting in touch with those that often use the lake for research or recreation to get a good picture of how harmful algal blooms can be. This festival demonstrated the joy the lake can provide for people including many aquatic sports and soaking up the sun and specifically what the lake could be like if we succeed in reducing toxic algal blooms.

BioUtah meeting - Our mentors attended a BioUtah event where they mingled with members of the biotech trade organization and the president presented the team's project to the attendees. They were then invited to give a formal presentation at the upcoming BioUtah Conference when we return from iGEM. BioUtah is a non-profit organization that brings Utah based life-sciences companies and programs together, and advocates for Utah biosciences at the state and federal level.

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