Melinda J. Bootsma

TL;DR: This study shows the feasibility and benefits of employing molecular methods to test for alternative indicators of fecal pollution to identify sewage sources and potential health risks and for prioritization of remediation efforts.

TL;DR: Bacterial community sequencing of the V6 and V6V4 hypervariable regions of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene is exploited to identify bacterial distributions that signal the presence of sewer, fecal, and human fecal pollution.

TL;DR: This study quantified the amount of sewage released from a major urban area under different hydrologic conditions to identify conditions that increase human risk of exposure to sewage and quantify hazards in exposure pathways from rain events and illustrate the additional stress that climate change may have on urban water systems.

TL;DR: Urban areas have unrecognized sewage inputs that may not be adequately prioritized for remediation by the TMDL process, and further analysis using these approaches could determine relationships between land use, storm characteristics, and other factors that drive sewage contamination in urban waterways.

TL;DR: Two novel human-associated genetic marker assays that target organisms within the family Lachnospiraceae are reported, demonstrating their utility in assessing water in urban areas and resolving ambiguous results from previous investigations of stormwater-impacted waters.