Legionella pneumonia was in the news again last week due to cases traced to Disneyland® cooling towers in Southern California. Of the 12 reported cases as of this writing, one patient has died. After the New York City outbreak in the Bronx in 2015, strict testing and reporting standards were instituted statewide. All towers are tested quarterly with water samples sent to a state certified testing facility. Any result that records greater than 20 CFU/mL but less than 1000 CFU requires online disinfection and retest in 3-7 days. When less than 20 CFU/mL is reached, routine maintenance continues. Greater than 1000 CFU requires state notification, online decontamination and retest. If any retest continues to be greater than 1000 CFU/mL, the cooling tower must be drained, decontaminated, and retested until it is below 1000 CFU/ml.
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Archives for November 2017
The Presence and Health Effects of Disinfection Byproducts Were a Major Topic at the 14th Annual World Aquatic Health Conference
The World Aquatic Health Conference was held in Denver on October 18-20 and it continues to be the premier science and education conference of the aquatic industry. My presentation on “The Relationship Between Organic Load, Disinfection Byproducts and Sphagnum Moss” was just one of many talks on the growing interest, and concern, about disinfection byproducts in recreational water and the surrounding air. In fact, during the two days of the Advanced Chemistry track, seven of the nine presentations were either about the contaminants found in swimming pools and/or the dynamics of disinfection byproduct production and presence in the water and air of natatoriums.
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