Rob Turner and Keya Sen awarded King County WaterWorks Program grant
IAS faculty member Rob Turner and Keya Sen (School of STEM) have been awarded a $45,903 grant via King County’s WaterWorks Program. The project is titled Investigation on the Use of Mycoremediation to Reduce Loading of Pathogenic Bacteria to North Creek. The funding will primarily be used to support undergraduate student researchers. The goals of the project are to:
- Reduce loading of fecal coliform bacteria from the University of Washington Bothell/Cascadia College campus and wetland area to North Creek by determining the optimal applications of mushroom mycelium inoculated wattles to clean up surface water flowing through our floodplain wetland. Field and laboratory experiments will be performed to determine reductions in E. coli bacteria, Campylobacter, Salmonella, nitrate, and turbidity in campus and wetland surface water flows after passage through mycelium inoculated substrates and the correlations between contact time and mycelium mass of different mushroom species and pathogenic bacteria reductions.
- Investigate the antimicrobial properties of mycelium exudate in the laboratory
- Provide cohorts of UWB students practice in planning and conducting both scientific research and bioremediation
- Share the findings of our project at symposia, conferences and in scientific journals
- Identify and implement new best management practices for bioremediation of surface water with excess fecal coliform bacteria, nutrients, and turbidity in the UWB/CC Wetland.
In accomplishing all of the above, Turner and Sen intend to model a way to live with a very large population of that roost on our property.