This project is one of several coordinated marine environmental studies funded through a Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) for rapid response to a natural disaster: the flooding of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. This effort by scientists at the NSF-NIEHS Center for Ocean and Human Health (COHH) at the University of Hawaii is part of a larger collaborative study with Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge, and with the NSF-NIEHS Centers for Oceans and Human Health at the University of Miami and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Shortly after Hurricane Katrina made landfall in the Gulf Coast Region, widespread flooding in the New Orleans area resulted in sewage overflows and contamination of floodwaters. Shortly thereafter, these floodwaters were pumped continuously into Lake Pontchartrain without treatment, resulting in the spread of contaminants into the Lake, which ultimately discharges towards the Gulf of Mexico. Working collaboratively, the multi-institutional research team will investigate the extent to which the waters in Lake Pontchartrain and vicinity have been contaminated with chemical contaminants, pathogenic microbes, and harmful algal bloom (HAB) organisms. The study will document the levels and spread of biotic and abiotic contaminants along with HAB organisms, information which will be useful for subsequent modeling efforts.
With SGER funding through this award, investigators at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution will conduct studies of microbial pathogens that are an outgrowth of newly developed methods and of new findings obtained in the context of research at the NSF-NIEHS Woods Hole Center for Oceans and Human Health. There are three primary objectives: (1) to quantify the dynamics of potentially pathogenic bacteria of the genus Vibrio in the floodwaters and sediments; (2) to determine the presence and distribution of Legionella species pathogenic to humans, and examine the general dynamics of microbial community change through denaturing gradient gel analyses; and (3) to assess the general microbial eukaryotic and prokaryotic diversity using clone libraries to determine the presence of sequence types related to known pathogens (that may represent unidentified human pathogens). The approach will identify harmful algal species as well.
Samples of water and sediment from Lake Pontchartrain will be collected in collaboration with researchers at Louisiana State University (LSU). These samples will be shared with members of the Miami and Hawaii COHH groups. The sharing of samples between all of these groups will facilitate more complete microbial measurements and analyses that are not possible for one group to accomplish alone. The information will also be collaboratively collected and analyzed to create a remarkable dataset.
The primary broader impact of this rapid-response study is that it will provide much needed information in the aftermath of a natural disaster. The microbes released by the sewage can potentially impact a large area including Lake Pontchartrain, and subsequently the Gulf of Mexico. There are significant human populations and fisheries in both these areas that can experience acute and chronic disease from these chemical, microbial, and HAB organism exposures now and in the future. From a basic science and public health perspective, it is important to investigate the mechanisms by which and the extent to which these contaminants have migrated.
