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WASTEWATER
Tracking Substance Use
Wastewater surveillance is enhancing health and safety
initiatives at remote industrial camps. BY MICHAEL BOSDET
LLICIT DRUG AND ALCOHOL use in
industrial settings has contributed to countless health and safety issues, financial costs,
and production instability. The complications
surrounding drug enforcement plans, policies,
and programs have become more challenging for
employers to monitor, yet protecting the health
and safety of workers remains a top priority for all
companies.
In support of Zero Harm objectives, Wastewater-Based Epidemiology (WBE) was employed as an
inexpensive, non-intrusive way to obtain near-real
time data on community substance use, providing
health and safety officials with the most relevant
data to structure educational programs and tailored
harm reduction strategies.
I
Michael Bosdet, COO of C.E.C. Innovations, has over
15 years of experience with high-tech companies, over
a decade in executive leadership, and holds a Ph.D. in
Chemistry from the University of Calgary, and an MBA
from Athabasca University.
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WATER C AN ADA • NOV EMBER/ DECEMBER 2024
C.E.C. Innovations
Project background
C.E.C. Analytics was originally contracted to
perform wastewater surveillance as a more efficient
means of supporting community health initiatives
related to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
Before initiating this project, the camp protocol
was frequent individual swabbing and testing of
staff and work-site visitors. Swabbing is resource
intensive, obtrusive, requires a nurse to administer
tests, and is complicated by scheduling, processing
and evaluation administrative burdens. Not only
was this expensive, but outbreaks still occurred and
impacted operations, increasing costs and delaying
project progress.
At the time, WBE was being implemented
within municipalities across Canada as a way to
stay ahead of Covid-19 trends. Samples were being
collected from wastewater treatment plants for
C.E.C. Analytics was originally contracted to perform wastewater surveillance as
a more efficient means of supporting community health initiatives related to the
SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
WAT E R C A N A D A . N E T
