A year after a Legionnaire’s disease outbreak killed 16 Bronx residents, the state Department of Health has released new regulations for inspecting and maintaining cooling towers in residential and commercial buildings, including hospitals and nursing homes.
State officials traced the source of the Bronx Legionnaire’s disease, or legionellosis, outbreak to a residential building’s cooling tower that contained legionella bacteria. Including the fatalities, 138 people became ill from the outbreak.
Because legionella is often water-borne and spreads through water vapor in the air, cooling towers recirculating water to cool large buildings present a potential hazard for contracting Legionnaire’s disease if the towers are not properly maintained.
Following the deaths, state health regulations now require cooling towers to be registered, inspected and tested for legionella.
Here are some of the new regulations for cooling towers:
- Register cooling towers in a statewide electronic system.
- Inspect the towers regularly for deficiencies.
- Have an updated maintenance plan by Sept. 1, 2016, that includes schedules for routine bacteriological culture sampling, routine legionella culture sampling and immediate legionella culture sampling if a problem occurs.
- Respond accordingly to any elevated legionella culture sampling results.
A recent Centers for Disease Control report noted that between 2000 and 2014, health care facilities were associated with about 57 percent of Legionnaire’s disease cases and 85 percent of the disease’s fatalities.
State health regulations now require the following from hospitals and residential health care facilities: - By Sept. 1, 2016, perform an environmental assessment that includes evaluating the building and water systems and identifying sampling locations.
- Implement a plan to manage potable water systems, including routine legionella culture sampling and immediate legionella culture sampling if a problem occurs, including if Legionnaire’s disease is found in the facility.
- Conduct legionella culture sampling every 90 days for the first year, and annually thereafter. Water systems that serve stem cell or organ transplant patients must be tested at least every 90 days.
Learn more about the new regulations at health.ny.gov/regulations/recently_adopted/docs/protection_against_legionella.pdf.
