As the Council is aware, the Mayor issued a news release on April 1 regarding a COVID-19 update. Within the news release there was a captioned paragraph entitled “Testing and Reporting – Filling the Gap with Big Data Analytics and Research Innovation”. In addition to the announcement of the town possibly working with the Illumina Consulting Group for the release of the COVID-19 assessment tool, the paragraph outlined a pilot program with a firm called Biobot, in collaboration with researchers at MIT, Harvard and Brigham Women’s Hospital, who is launching a COVID-19 mapping project based on sanitary sewer data. The Mayor requested my office to evaluate the participation of our wastewater team to collect the necessary sewer samples to fulfill the pilot study requirements. It was anticipated that the town would participate in the pilot project for a minimum of 30 days with the expectation of drawing two samples of raw sewage per week and shipping it to Biobot’s headquarters In Massachusetts.

At the April 28, 2020 Town Council Meeting, Council agreed that the Town Manager move forward and authorize Inboden Environmental Services, Inc. (IES) to take two samples per week for 4 weeks at a total cost of $2,540.

IES has submitted Certifications of Insurance and has reached out to Biobot requesting the sample kits, and the first sample is expected to be taken on Tuesday, May 12.