NY Cooling Tower Legionella Regulations
The regulation requires sampling within two weeks of seasonal start-up and thereafter at intervals not to exceed 90 days. In addition, the regulation requires that year-round use towers be sampled at intervals not to exceed 90 days and within two weeks after start-up following maintenance.
NY Legionella Regulations Missing the Boat?
There are outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease which have been clearly linked to a sole aerosolized source of bacteria. In these outbreaks, acute proximity and duration were shown to govern exposure and incidence of Legionnaires’ disease. However, there are many outbreaks attributed to a cooling tower source which do not adhere to these rules. These outbreaks have case profiles which are more random and cover larger areas. These outbreaks mimic the documented profile of certain potable water outbreaks where a single ‘upstream’ source contaminates multiple exposure sites.
CDC: Water Management Program to Reduce Legionella
Many buildings need a water management program to reduce the risk for Legionella growing and spreading within their water system and devices. This toolkit is designed to help people understand which buildings and devices need a Legionella water management program to reduce the risk for Legionnaires’ disease, what makes a good program, and how to develop it.
CDC’s no Legionella environmental testing policy
The CDC’s recommendations for preventing Legionnaires’ disease have been predominantly focused on what might termed a disease surveillance strategy–a reactive process that relies on screening for disease after cases are detected, at which time a response is quickly undertaken to prevent further infections. Although this strategy works well for person-to-person transmissible diseases where the source of the disease is another infected individual, it is not well suited to situations in which the source of disease is in the environment.