REGINA -- Dena McMartin has heard all the jokes about her
“crappy job.” McMartin, an associate professor of Environmental
Systems Engineering at the University of Regina, is leading a
team of researchers studying about 70 patties of frozen cow
manure. The patties have been located on the roof of the
university’s Classroom Building (CL) since January. The goal of
the research is to unravel the mystery of how Escherichia coli,
more commonly known as E. coli, survive the harsh Saskatchewan
winters. “E.coli — they’re gut organisms. They live at 37 C. So,
in theory, they shouldn’t survive -40 C temperatures,” explained
McMartin. “But what we’ve found in the field experiments in
spring runoff is we have very high fecal coliform counts — live
bacteria — coming off fields and into streams and creeks when in
theory there should be none. They shouldn’t have survived.” The
U of R project, a satellite version of affiliated research being
done on 14 field sites in Moosomin by Agriculture and Agri-Food
Canada, is comprised