OWENSVILLE — The Gasconade County R-2 School District volunteered to participate in a no-cost grant program to monitor community health trends through sewage testing.

Tyler Kirwan of the Missouri Independent wrote that the Missouri Department of Public Safety negotiated a contract with Stercus Bioanalytics in December 2025 to test school districts’ wastewate for drug use and signs of fentanyl as part of a $7 million statewide project.

The testing for the GCR-2 District was done through Stercus Bioanalytics, a wastewater surveillance company based out of Kansas City. They collected weekly wastewater samples from the GCR-2 School District.

According to the report samples were collected from the second week of 2026 until the thirteen week.

The samples were collected from the same manhole, located near the district’s bus maintenance building, which travels from the Owensville High School to a lift station behind the elementary school and then sent to the city’s waste water treatment plant.

According to the results of the tests, cocaine, methamphetamine and nicotine were the most common drugs found during the study of sewage discharge from the Gasconade County R-2 School District’s high school building.

Nitazenes were present the eighth and 12th week of testing.

Voluntary wastewater testing in 26 of 37 Missouri schools participating in the program detected the presence of nitazenes, a highly potent class of synthetic opioids that can be five to 10 times more powerful than fentanyl, according to the Missouri Department of Public Safety.

Stercus Bioanalytics said there are two sewage pipes are sources that flow into the manhole. One from the school and the other one is from the stadium. They should be collecting a reliable sample from the school.

R-2 Assistant Superintendent Dr. Staci Johnson said that the district participated in the program to observe and document health trends within the community.

“However, we recognize that the purpose of this program was to expose community health trends, and we know that drug use is a problem in our community, as it is in many others,” said Johnson.

The district has programs in place to combat drug use, providing students with a way to learn about the dangers of narcotics.

“We have a comprehensive drug and alcohol abuse education program that spans K-12. Other supports include the counseling team and family-school liaisons, who are often involved in helping families overcome drug abuse and the trauma it causes,” said Johnson.

In the spring, R-2 hosted a family engagement night about how to protect children from drug use and addiction. Johnson said that attendance was low and hopes that by participating in the study, families will be more aware and proactive in drug prevention learning. The plan is to provide more opportunities for engagement about the topic next year.

“We plan to offer additional learning and engagement opportunities around this important topic next year,” said Johnson. “Additionally, SRO (Paul) Baldwin is fully certified as a DARE educator and has been implementing the DARE program with elementary students throughout the year.”