The initial project of the group has been sampling of water microbiomes and antibiotic concentrations in treated water impacted urban streams, upstream and downstream of wastewater treatment plants, as well as at multiple locations within the water treatment plants themselves. Regional utility Charlotte Water has been very supportive in giving us access to sewer and plant sites. A manuscript is in review and preprints are available upon request:

Three papers about this project have appeared so far:

Sorgen, Alicia, James Johnson, Kevin Lambirth, Sandra M. Clinton, Molly Redmond, Anthony Fodor, and Cynthia Gibas. 2021. “Characterization of Environmental and Cultivable Antibiotic-Resistant Microbial Communities Associated with Wastewater Treatment” Antibiotics 10, no. 4: 352. https://doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics10040352

Clinton, Sandra, James Johnson, Kevin Lambirth, Shan Sun, Cory Brouwer, Olya Keen, Molly Redmond, Anthony Fodor, and Cynthia Gibas. 2020. “Sediment Microbial Diversity in Urban Piedmont North Carolina Watersheds Receiving Wastewater Input” Water 12, no. 6: 1557. https://doi.org/10.3390/w12061557

Lambirth, Kevin, Matthew Tsilimigras, Anju Lulla, James Johnson, Abrar Al-Shaer, Orion Wynblatt, Shannon Sypolt, Cory Brouwer, Sandra Clinton, Olya Keen, Molly Redmond, Anthony Fodor, and Cynthia Gibas. 2018. “Microbial Community Composition and Antibiotic Resistance Genes within a North Carolina Urban Water System” Water 10, no. 11: 1539. https://doi.org/10.3390/w10111539