Abstract
Bacillus anthracis, the causative agent for anthrax, is a dangerous pathogen to humans and has a history as a bioterrorism agent. While sampling methods have been developed and evaluated for characterizing and clearing contaminated indoor sites, the performance of these sampling methods is unknown for use in outdoor environments. This paper presents surface sampling data for Bacillus atrophaeus spores, a surrogate for B. anthracis, from a 210-day outdoor study that evaluated the detection and recovery of spores using five different sampling methods as follows: sponge sticks, 37-mm vacuum filter cassettes, residential wet vacuums, robotic floor cleaners, and grab samples of soil, leaves, and grass. The spores were applied by spraying a liquid suspension onto the surfaces. Both asphalt and concrete surfaces were sampled by all the surface sampling methods, excluding grab sampling. Stainless steel coupons placed outdoors were additionally sampled using sponge sticks. Sampling methods differed in their ability to collect detectable spores over the duration of the study. The 37-mm vacuums and sponge sticks consistently detected spores on asphalt through day 37 and robots through day 99. The wet vacuums detected spores on asphalt for days 1 and 4, but not again until day 210. On concrete, all samplers detected spores until day 210 except for sponge stick samplers that detected spores only up until the day 99 time point. For all sampling methods, spore recoveries were higher from concrete than from asphalt surfaces. There was no statistically significant difference in recoveries of sponge sticks and 37-mm vacuums from either asphalt or concrete surfaces. Processing of grab samples was challenging due to non-target background microorganisms resulting in high detection limits for the samples.
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Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Michael Borst and Ariamalar Selvakumar of the EPA Office of Research and Development in Edison, NJ, for hosting us at the Urban Watershed Facility. Alexander Korf of Jacobs Technology Inc. is acknowledged for the development of the quality assurance project plan and for the project management of the inoculation and first week of sampling. Lee Brush, Chris Fuller, Stella McDonald, Brian Sechrest, Jason Colon, and Timothy McArthur of Jacobs Technology Inc. are acknowledged for their execution of sample collection over the course of the study. Kathleen May of Jacobs Technology is acknowledged for the assistance in biological enumeration. Work by Jacobs Technology Inc. was performed under EPA contract number EP-C-15-008. John Lapinski and Pasquale Pozzolano of PARS Environmental are also acknowledged for their assistance with site-specific equipment and utilities. Their work was performed under EPA contract number EP-C-17-009.
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Mikelonis, A.M., Abdel-Hady, A., Aslett, D. et al. Comparison of surface sampling methods for an extended duration outdoor biological contamination study. Environ Monit Assess 192, 455 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-020-08434-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-020-08434-8