As large building water systems become more complex and end users and facility building professionals continue to work to save water, the risk for Legionella increases. Large Residential and mixed use building often use a large hot water loop to provide direct hot water. When using less water, the water gets older and the chlorine that the city put in, isn’t as effective. As the infrastructure ages, concerns grow and issues can compound.
With heightened awareness around sanitization and respiratory health, it is important to consider your water system in your safety plan and to educate your teams in current water chemistry hygiene methods.
Localized Legionella regulations often get implemented following an outbreak. Many questions have been raised regarding the effectiveness of such regulations. We used the power of our data management platform to attempt to answer these questions.
Following we review some of our preliminary conclusions regarding the impact of such regulations on the incidence and level of Legionella in cooling towers.
Legionella risk mitigation measures have received more press coverage over the last few years. Some may question if this is just white noise. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows the incidence rate has quadrupled in the last 15 years.
Legionella outbreaks in various North American geographies have resulted in localized legislation and regulations. Following the Quebec City Legionella outbreak in 2012, the province of Quebec introduced legislation requiring owners of evaporative cooling systems to register their cooling towers. Owners must now document the mechanical maintenance program as well as their water treatment program. Since July 2014, the regulation also required Legionella sampling of cooling towers on a 30-day interval basis.
Though we observed a large pushback across the industry, these regulatory changes offered an opportunity to collect a significant amount of data on cooling water programs and the presence of Legionella bacteria in cooling systems. Over 10,000 Legionella samples were collected in the province during the four years and logged in our cloud based AquaAnalytics platform. As shown in the graph below, a strong improvement trend appeared from the onset of the sampling mandate. At a glance, this indicated to us that the regulatory changes were having a positive impact on field results. These strong improvements in results were achieved without changing the water treatment programs, but rather by raising awareness and accountability.
Our observations through the last five years indicate that measuring the performance of the water treatment program through Legionella sampling, created a willingness to improve these programs. Drawing on lessons from organizational behavior, regulations can have an impact on behavior through applying the 5 A’s:
The Quebec regulation forced assessment through legislated sampling requirements. This created a sense of awareness, and accountability from the cooling tower owners. Actions were followed through and the impact of these actions were acknowledged through re-sampling.
The high level indication of improvement in results prompted us to do a deeper dive. We next looked at the Legionella results in combination with all other measured water treatment parameters by our field engineers and chemists in our AquaAnalytics platform. This is the largest known dataset of field collected cooling water treatment control results in over 300 evaporative cooling systems, combined with more than 10,000 corresponding Legionella culture results in North America. This metadata analysis has allowed us to draw conclusions on the best practices related to Legionella control. We were able to present these results at the Legionella Conference 2019. Two papers presented recently provide further analysis and conclusions (LEGIONELLA REGULATION, COOLING TOWER POSITIVITY AND WATER QUALITY IN THE QUEBEC CONTEX, Impact of Legionella Regulations on Water Treatment Programs and Control).
The HVAC industry, including water treatment firms and cooling equipment manufacturers, are often reticent to the introduction of new regulations. Our data indicates that regulations can raise the bar on how to properly control water treatment programs, leading to reduction in levels and incidences of Legionella positivity. Clear and simple regulations can therefore have a major impact on the risk associated with the presence of higher levels of Legionella in cooling water systems.
Further analysis of this rich dataset is required to solidify our understanding of the leading indicators of higher Legionella results in the months prior to an incidence. In the interim, the data confirms our strongly held belief that “You can’t manage what you don’t measure” and that following the 5 A’s not only has a positive impact on operating costs, but can also reduce risk by reducing the level and presence of Legionella in a cooling system.
More information is available on available technologies and methods for your plant to mitigate and monitor Legionella. However, the best way to ensure your facility doesn’t become the next hot spot is using a properly designed water treatment program that minimizes biological growth and incorporated the power of Cloud computing and data captured using AquaAnalytics.
Spring is the perfect time to also remind ourselves of the best practices for a cooling tower preventative maintenance program. Following these best practices are equally important to both allow your cooling system to reach Least Cost Operating Solution, and to simultaneously minimize your Legionella risk. If your cooling system was idle for the winter months, reviewing the 5 Simple Steps for cooling tower startups would also be timely.
Download: AquaAnalytics Checklist of Best Practices for Minimizing Legionella Risk for Evaporative Cooling Systems
Trade Expo / 05.14.19
Meet DuBois Technical Representatives at BOOTH# 5449, May 14-16 at EASTEC, to help shape your business at the East Coast’s premier manufacturing event. We will feature our leading our leading metalworking fluids, process cleaners, rust preventatives, paint pretreatment and water treatment solutions for cooling, boilers and wastewater.
Recent Events / 10.02.18
The acquisition of the Water Treatment Solutions division of Triwater Holdings LLC, and its Klenzoid, Eldon Water, Chemco Products and Nashville Chemical brands, expands DuBois position in Canada and enhances our solutions for the institutional, light industrial, food and beverage and natural resources markets.
Recent Events / 04.22.19
St. Joseph Mercy Oakland and Eldon Water, a recent acquisition of DuBois Chemicals, implemented a program to save a projected 665,000 gallons of water annually. For Earth Day this year, the hospital was awarded a $10,000 check by Eldon for being a sustainability leader.
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