Mt Vernon Kokosing River WWTP Metagenome

Rivers in rural areas receive continual influx of wastewater carrying antibiotics originally administered to humans and livestock. The entry of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) into aquatic systems has been documented for large municipal wastewater treatment plants, but there is less study of the impact of smaller plants that are situated on small rural rivers. We sampled water metagenomes for ARG and taxa composition from the Kokosing River, a small rural river in Knox County, Ohio. Samples were obtained upstream, a few meters downstream, and 6 km downstream from the effluent release of the Mount Vernon wastewater treatment plant (WWTP).