ONDAVIA, INC. — Department of Agriculture SBIR Phase I: Agricultural non-point source (NPS) run-off is the leading source of pollution in our rive

Description

Agricultural non-point source (NPS) run-off is the leading source of pollution in our rivers and lakes. When one considers the scale of farmland in the United States--330 million acres--the impact of run-off is not surprising. The USDA pays over $1.5 billion annually towards the Conservation Reserve Program for land conservation along waterways, an effort partially targeted to decrease NPS pollution. Unfortunately, reducing or eliminating these NPS pollutant sources, from sediment and nutrients to pathogens and pesticides, is a challenge by definition: they are diffuse. One key component in the fight against NPS pollution is monitoring--measuring pollution levels rapidly in the field. Existing tools that can measure these pollutants--e.g., chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry--are expensive, complex, laboratory-based instruments. Current portable monitoring tools cannot even approach measuring parts per billion, levels that can have an impact on human health. At the same time, our water sources are threatened by numerous other pollutants with regulatory limits at the parts-per-billion level: pharmaceuticals and personal care products, heavy metals, military remnants, and industrial waste. The ability to monitor our water supply at the parts-per-billion level or better at the source or in the field would vastly improve the capabilities of water suppliers. This ability will in turn allow water suppliers to increase monitoring frequency, to implement remediation steps, and to focus research efforts on understanding of the health effects of chronic exposure. This problem is compounded by the inability to measure rapidly in the field the amount of contamination present. OndaVia proposes a portable analysis instrument that would allow regulators to 1) determine more quickly which compounds are present, 2) choose remediation steps, 3) add specific monitoring of ground and surface water, 4) increase studies of the human health effects of specific compounds, and 5) eliminate the source through targeted public educating on proper use and disposal. This system combines a portable instrument with consumable analysis cartridge designed to measure compounds in aqueous solution at one part per billion using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). Under this project, OndaVia will demonstrate detection of atrazine and acetochlor at part-per-billion levels, data that will enable commercialization of a portable herbicide monitoring system during Phase II development and beyond.