MARSHALL — The city’s sewage plant is helping the Minnesota Department of Health monitor respiratory diseases in the state by testing wastewater for the presence of COVID and other viruses.

This week, the Marshall City Council voted to approve a joint powers agreement with the state that would allow the city to receive up to $10,000 in stipends for submitting wastewater samples for testing.

At Tuesday’s city council meeting, wastewater Superintendent Scott Przybilla explained how the wastewater monitoring program works. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the University of Minnesota started a research project to study wastewater collected at different sewage plants around the state – including in Marshall. Przybilla said the program tested wastewater for the presence of COVID virus, which may have been shed by people infected with it. Through the program, the U of M was able to detect the virus in wastewater, and see changes in COVID activity in different Minnesota communities over time.

The Minnesota Department of Health has now taken over the wastewater monitoring program.

“The data is used in conjunction with health care reporting, and fills in the gaps often caused by people with milder cases not seeking medical care but still being infected,” said Przybilla. “In some cases, wastewater monitoring can serve as an early warning system for the spread of disease before the situation becomes severe,” he said.

Przybilla said Marshall has participated in the wastewater testing program since 2020.

Przybilla said the wastewater testing can’t identify any individual people who may have COVID. It also can’t pinpoint exactly how many people in the community are infected. But the data collected from wastewater can show if a disease is present in Marshall, and if that presence is increasing or decreasing.

In addition to COVID, MDH is also testing wastewater for other respiratory diseases like influenza and RSV.

Przybilla said the MDH recently secured funding to pay the city of Marshall a $100 stipend for each test sample the wastewater plant submits, up to $10,000 a year. In order to get the stipend, the city needed to enter into a JPA with the state.

Council members unanimously approved the JPA.

The MDH posts wastewater monitoring updates on its website on Thursdays. As of the most recent update, viruses like COVID, influenza A and B, and RSV were not detected in Marshall wastewater. Data from over the past year showed that Marshall wastewater last had a spike of influenza A in January. The amounts of Influenza B and RSV spiked in March and April. The high points of COVID activity for the past year were recorded in December, January and March.