A handful of Bay Area communities are now turning to their wastewater to track their opioid crisis.
The same tech that is being used to track COVID will now help them track fentanyl and meth in hopes of helping focus their efforts to address the growing crisis.
“We’re doing a pilot where we are testing wastewater for the presence of nicotine, fentanyl, methamphetamine and cocaine,” said Haylee Hannah, an epidemiologist with Marin County Health and Human Services.
Hannah described a program that began last month.
“The overall goal is so that we can understand more about substance use in the community, and have an idea of changes in