MSU water expert part of international effort in Thailand

Contact: Joan Rose, (517) 432-4412, rosejo@msu.edu; or Sue Nichols, University Relations, (517) 353-8942, nichols@msu.edu

One of the great ironies of the catastrophic tidal wave in Asia is that so much water has fouled so much water.

Joan Rose, the Homer Nowlin Chair in Water Research and director of the Environmental Microbiology Laboratory, went to Thailand in January as part of an international effort to collect water samples to better understand the critical challenges facing the area.

“We know there is a lot of fresh water that now has saline; we know there are problems with flies and insects because of debris in the water; we need to understand what we have once the bottled water and the aid stops,” Rose said.

She returned with some samples to analyze at MSU, using new techniques to evaluate human fecal contamination, since sewer pipes and systems have been damaged.

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