The University of Winnipeg is working closely with the Village of Dunnottar, Manitoba, and Dillon Consulting, Ltd., on using underground filters to treat wastewater more effectively in rural communities. These simple, low-cost filters remove nutrients, organic micropollutants such as pesticides and pharmaceuticals from human use and antibiotic resistance genes before discharge into Lake Winnipeg.
“We are pleased to find new and better ways to eliminate wastewater contaminants for better and more sustainable protection of our water resources”, notes Dr. Charles Wong, Canada Research Chair in Ecotoxicology at UWinnipeg. Wong leads an international team along with Dr. Mark Hanson (University of Manitoba) on this project funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and Environment Canada’s Lake Winnipeg Basin Stewardship Fund.
The team’s work was recently featured in the Municipal Leader, a newsletter for rural Manitoban communities. Shira Joudan, a student of Wong’s, recently won a best-presentation award on this work at the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry’s Prairie Northern Regional Meeting.
