The following transcript is provided by YouTube. Mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode, click HERE.
stay on up nation when was the last time
you thought about your insurance
coverage for me it is not very often but
I know for a fact that you sleep soundly
at night knowing that you have it that
means it’s important and that means you
need to understand what it is that you
have it means you need to understand
where your liability is and you need
someone that you can trust to have that
conversation with several years ago
I met Mike Higham at an AWT convention
of McGowan Insurance Group and at the
time I had our insurance through a local
broker who is an extremely nice guy and
we had had our auto policies with him
for years and when I started my company
I naturally called him and he got us
coverage the thing is he did not
understand the water treatment industry
so he was giving us the best coverage he
knew to get us without understanding the
industry I had a conversation with Mike
at that convention and he asked some
very good questions questions that I
didn’t have the answers to and I’m sure
glad he asked those questions because
folks I did not know to ask them but as
soon as he asked them I knew that I did
not have all the coverages that I need
think of all the coverages out there
property general liability professional
liability workers compensation employee
Practices Liability folks there’s even
insurance for cyber a liability and I
have to tell you I did not know to ask
about that one but Mike did because this
is what he does he serves the water
treatment industry and he knows that
there is a potential liability because
of the remote access that we do with our
controllers not only did he get me the
right coverage with the right company he
was able to give me advice on making
sure that we
proper policies in effect to make sure
that we were protecting ourselves and
our customers a lot of insurers can only
write through one insurance carrier
McGowan Insurance Group represents
dozens of carriers like Donegal
insurance and when we go to renew I
can’t tell you how awesome it is that
they are able to look at multiple
suppliers to make sure that we’re
getting the best coverage but we’re also
getting the best value I know without a
doubt because McGowan Insurance Group
understands the water treatment industry
that we are getting that each and every
time we renew with them they do
liability benefits bonds they are a full
service agency give the fine folks at
McGowan Insurance Group a call today and
tell them that trace ascent you or visit
them on the web at mcg OWA in I NS GRP
com
welcome to scaling up h2o the podcast
where we’re scaling up on our knowledge
so we don’t scale up our systems
hello scaled up nation Trace Blackmore
here the host for scaling up h2o and
today’s show is special because I wasn’t
going to air it and then I had some
questions so from some customers and I
had some questions from some fellow
water treaters and I thought what a
great opportunity to bring something
that we did on the rising tide master
mind to the scaling up nation now I
think you know way back when the
pandemic first started I did not feel
good about things I felt very hopeless
and decisions were being made for me and
I felt like I couldn’t do anything at
first anyway well then I started
learning everything I could about what
an employer could do during a pandemic
of course there’s no books about that
it’s just getting information where that
information is and of course now it’s a
lot easier to find but in the beginning
it wasn’t so I used a lot of colleagues
that counseled me I read everything I
could I stayed up to date on the CDC
website and it was during that point
that people started asking me what am i
doing so the company could continue
servicing our critical systems and
that’s kind of when it hit me I wanted
to be known during the pandemic for
somebody that was helping other people
for those of you that know who mr.
Rogers is and I know I’m probably dating
myself with that but he was he was a
children’s show host on PBS and I
remember just about every day I would
watch him and he would go to the land of
make-believe and there’s a movie about
him so hopefully the the people that
have never seen mr. Rogers have maybe
seen the movie so they know what I’m
talking about
but I remember an interview with Fred
Rogers and he was talking about when he
was a child and he would get scared when
he would see something happen on the
news like an explosion gunfire something
like that and as a little boy he would
get scared and his mom would tell him
look for all the helpers meaning when
something happened there were always
people in there that were helping the
people that were affected and I tell you
that really meant something to me
because there’s those of us that don’t
really help and there’s some of us that
that do help and not that not that one
is better than another cuz I’m sure
everybody has their reasons for doing
what they do but I wanted to be one of
those helpers so with that I started a
weekly webinar series with the
mastermind group the rising tide
mastermind that’s a group of people we
get together every week we talk about
issues that we all have but folks I
gotta tell you we really talked about
this pandemic we talk about what each
other was doing how we could help each
other and then we talked about what I
needed to do as the facilitator to bring
experts on to help educate the people
within the mastermind on how we get
through this pandemic so every week I
had a speaker come on and we talked
about different topics we talked about
insurance risk we’ve had Mike Higham of
McGowan Insurance Group who came on
we’ve had a good friend of mine Austin
cause II talk about how we maintain good
mental health within the pandemic and
also for those of us that have team
members that work with us how to help
them maintain good mental health
we had a CFO Mike Iverson come on of
Trillium Financial and he helped us
understand what was in the cares Act and
for those who applied for the PPP loans
what they needed to know
my business coach Tim Fulton came on to
talk about five ways to effectively
manage your business during this crisis
we had sales expert Adam Shapiro come on
to help us understand how to do sales in
a pandemic we had another CFO Adam lien
come on to talk about what metrics we
should be looking at not only during the
pandemic but also all the time and we
quoted Fred Drucker things that get
measured simply get better because
you’re looking at them communication
crisis expert Cindy Miller came on to
help us craft our messages that we were
giving to our clients HR expert Helene
Grossman came on to talk about HR issues
that we need to talk about during the
pandemic I did a webinar on zoom or
virtual meeting etiquette and what I’m
going to share with you today is one of
those webinars and just like all of
these webinars they came from somebody
asking I need more information about
this and we got them more information
about that with the mastermind well one
of the questions was we have customers
that have shut their buildings down and
now they’re getting back online what do
we need to know about it how do we talk
to the customers about it how do we get
them good information so I reached out
to my friend dr. Janet stout of special
pathogens laboratory and she did a
webinar for us by the way all of those
webinars if you go to our show notes
page scaling-up
h2o comm and then you go to /a Ovid 19
you can also navigate there by going to
our resources page on the website and
then going to the proactive webinar
series you can see all of those so what
I’m going to do today I’m going to play
for you dr. stouts interview with me and
it’s my hope that you can use this and
to get yourself more information so you
can have better conversations with your
clients and I also hope that you take
every opportunity to look for more
information out there so I mentioned
before that one of my goals is to be
prepared by loading up information I
told you I want it to be a helper of
other people well in order to do that I
had to load up on information so I hope
you look at some of the webinars that we
post it on the show notes page or on the
website
but I do think you will enjoy this
episode with dr. Janet Stout so let’s
listen today’s webinar is brought to you
by the rising tide mastermind the rising
tide mastermind is made up of a group of
individuals that get together regularly
to help each other solve our issues but
mostly to help each other get further
faster in all areas of life whether our
group or another group is the right
group for you I think now more than ever
everybody needs a group of trusted
advisors the rising tide mastermind is
putting on this proactive webinar series
so we can focus on the things we can do
and not simply worry about the things
that we cannot our presenter today is
dr. Janet spell of special pathogens
laboratory Janet’s been a great friend
of the podcast scaling up h2o she shared
some great information with us numerous
occasions on Legionella risk and
awareness today Janet’s going to help us
understand best practices when we start
up water systems that have been dormant
for an extended amount of time welcome
Janet no thank you trace and thank you
for the opportunity to be with your
scale of h2o nation it’s a wonderful day
and it’s actually a sunny day in
Pittsburgh so lots to celebrate today so
Janet the question came up within the
rising tide mastermind a lot of us are
dealing with systems that have just been
dormant for
maybe well over a month and people are
thinking we’ve got to get back to work
we’ve got to get people in these
buildings and they’re not thinking about
all the things that have happened while
the water has been stagnated of course
us water traders that’s all we think
about so we appreciate your help today
with helping us understand really what
that issue entails and what are some
best practices around that well it’s
gonna be fun actually it’s always fun
when you come to visit so I think what
I’m really asking you listeners to do is
kind of you know get into the shoes of
the microbes in the water a little bit
and that’ll make a little bit more sense
as we kind of go through it and so I’m
talking to you today about the risk of
Legionnaires disease in building water
systems after this unprecedented
shutdown and and as most of your
listeners know I’m an infectious disease
microbiologist and I’m president of
special pathogens laboratory where were
more than a lab we help and support
water treaters all over the United
States and others dealing with Legion L
& waterborne pathogens but the other
thing that really I’d like to share is
the other hat that I wear which is as a
researcher with my affiliation at the
University of Pittsburgh with civil
environmental engineering so that’s the
perspective that I bring to the problem
that your listeners are challenged with
and you know sort of speaking of
challenges yeah like a huge speed bump
for all of our businesses and the
businesses of our clients that really
kind of slow us down in managing this
situation you know we really have to
keep going right even with the
restrictions and you know here I am with
my my my mask on which I encourage
everyone although we are not wearing
masks now because we are alone in our
conference rooms you know please
practice all that safe distancing and
please wear wear the masks and and so
I’m here today to really talk to you
about some of the issues that make it
safer unsafe
with regard to reopening and the you
know this is really affecting pretty
much any kind of building that you can
think of commercial office buildings
certainly hospitals long-term care
senior retirement communities hotels
even casinos you know when he’s when he
starts sort of ticking through the types
of buildings you just go yes yes yes yes
yes and then a touch upon these four
sort of conceptual steps when it comes
to reopening safely and you know most of
you are all familiar with water
management plans but sometimes this
piece of the water management it’s
missed you know so we want to talk about
including these low flow conditions and
changes in occupancy and your water
management plans and what is the role of
testing for Legionella in you know
before you open after you open a party
you know kind of your ongoing
maintenance you want to be prepared and
I love that at the beginning you talked
about being proactive and that’s been
part of my vocabulary for many many
decades you want to be proactive and
respond to the challenge you don’t want
to be reactive and have react under
pressure and having a plan for
disinfection is all part of that and
then I always want to emphasize doesn’t
matter what the situation is document
document document and and the meaning of
that is in part the little lawyer that
always sits on my shoulder but also when
you have water management that’s a key
part of what documentation is so we’re
going to kind of get to you know what
does it mean to be in the shoes of a
microbe why do my friends like a shot
and what have we learned that can be
applied to this situation
so while us humans are experiencing
scarcity
you know just go to the grocery store
and try to find toilet paper or paper
towels right the bacteria have
everything they’d be in abundance in
these building water systems that have
been shut down so what I say is there’s
a party in the heights you know these
bacteria are loving
in there under these conditions and so
we’ve got the little bacteria in the
pipe there and the party hats and I want
you to think a little bit about who’s at
the party right so this is a partial
list of bacteria that are present and
growing and abundance in those pipes and
water systems that have been shut down
you know some of these I’d love to say
Pseudomonas aeruginosa as the native
actor species or cold area my favorite
next Allegiant alum course is
stenotrophomonas mouth of Philly I love
I love to say instead of easy for you to
say yeah well yeah but it rolls off the
tongue of a microbiologist I guess we
could say and then other organisms like
non-tuberculous mycobacteria but the big
one is that of course Legionella and the
one that for the most part causes the
most concern in terms of human infection
risk your folks that are treating things
like hot tubs and whirlpool spas you
know really need to be worried about
Pseudomonas as well because that’s the
one that causes that folliculitis
problem for them so what happens to
water quality during a shutdown and so I
want you to think of that Tina Turner
song
what’s Flo got to do what they’ve got to
do with it right okay she said what’s
love got to do with it
so what’s Flo got to do with it so this
is logical but many of your clients are
not kind of putting two and two together
so when there’s stagnant or standing
water whatever disinfectant amount was
in there and generally speaking it’s
pretty low whatever was there has
decreased and then with respect to the
hot water side of a potable water
distribution system you know you may
have still the hot water generation set
at 130 or 140 but it’s not recirculating
so in the distribution the temperature
drops because it’s just sitting there
it’s not recirculating anymore and no
one’s using it similarly with cold water
the cold waters not flowing so it’s not
going to be cold because it’s ray
the temperature of that cold water is
going to whatever ambient temperature
there is in those unoccupied floors and
buildings and rooms and most of your
viewers know that the growth range for
Legionella is fairly wide ideal
temperatures near body temperature of
course but the point here is that the
temperature of both the hot water in a
potable water system in the cold water
gets into a growth range that many
bacteria like and will grow in abundance
right so that’s what’s happening in
those water systems and what I wanted to
do is I wanted to give you you know like
a visual depiction of this because it’s
sort of a theoretical thing and so what
is that the stagnant water in also
increases the time or the water age and
so Legionella in this water likes to
hang out with other bacteria right so
that’s called synergy they sort of do
better together as you know compared to
a part of these rapidly growing bacteria
help Legionella to grow and so here’s
the example that I wanted to give you so
imagine this base as the pipe and
imagine in the flowers is the organic
you know material sediment and dirt
that’s normally in pipe well this
example I actually did this experiment
so the water was flowing into the base
and overflowing over a three to four day
period
well if there’s no water flowing this is
what that water looks like and then we
get a little closer and it really is
looking pretty nasty now you all have
seen this but you’ve never kind of
connected it to that’s what’s going on
inside the pipes and water systems of
the building that just sitting this
experiment shows you that bacteria if
they’re given a nutrient source and
stagnant ambient temperature water what
can happen under those conditions and so
it’s pretty pretty nasty now the can
action here and that synergy with
Legionella is what I want to show you
next so the experiment that we did and
this was back in my early days as a
young microbiologist is what we did was
equally janela in the agar plate and we
left out the essential ingredient for
Legionella to grow in that buffered
charcoal yeast extract auger which is an
amino acid system so it wouldn’t grow on
its own but if we put on top of it this
other bacterium
it secretes into the agar a nutrient
that Legionella needs to grow so you can
see that only the Legionella colonies in
that medium are only present very close
to that other bacteria so that’s the
concept that these other bacteria
growing in abundance are producing
nutrients that help Legionella to grow
as well and Legionella certainly is
growing there too well there are other
microbes most of you are aware of this
in all of the water systems that we use
and that’s a unicellular organism called
amoeba so in a no flow or low flow
situation you know the amoeba is sort of
grazing the law and then they go oh
here’s some bacteria I’m going to eat
them up well that’s what happens in a
low flow condition it’s more likely that
those of you are going to come in
contact with Legionella and then when it
does eat Legionella it thinks it’s just
having another bacterial hamburger so to
speak a meal but Legionella grows inside
instead of being destroyed and that’s
depicted in this video from the center
biofilm engineering where Legionella
that’s spinning you know kind of
activity inside there that’s the amoeba
and Legionella inside and at about one
o’clock on the spinning growing
intracellular organisms of Legionella
and that one o’clock on the cell is
where bursts open you see there and all
of the Legionella that had multiplied
into the
hundreds are now spewed out into the
water distribution system so that helps
you understand just not only the
relationship of Legionella with other
bacteria that are growing and funded lee
in water but also amoeba or protozoa
that are in that water so we want to
talk also about other changes that occur
in these stagnant water systems and
particularly when they are repressurized
so they’ve been laying there dormant you
know whatever is going on with the scale
and material that’s inside the pipe all
of a sudden changes because of refresh
or zation so this is sort of one of the
visual pictures I want you to have in
mind and then the other is this one
where you see all the scale and material
that’s on the sides of the pipe and then
in a dormant situation some of that
comes off and then when re
pressurization occurs you get brown
water events and I just want to also
tell you that it’s not just when you see
brown water you know that’s sort of the
most extreme situation but even we know
that even in a glass of water that looks
clear there’s bacteria there as well so
the this association with Legionella
growth and spread and changes in water
quality and delayed occupancy it was
first noted by a infectious disease
physician named Leonard Rimmel and he’s
at Rhode Island Hospital and he
published this paper in 1995 and the
water quality changes that he was
reporting were associated with
construction and each time those water
quality changes occurred there were
outbreaks of Legionnaires disease so the
analogy is you know we have an analogous
situation here with these dormant
unopened water systems and these were
his recommendations in that 1995 paper
culture the water system before during
and after these shutdowns and
repressurization of the water supply
culture for Legionella should be carried
out especially if any of those areas are
used by people that would be in
high-risk so of the buildings that we
noted before you know you know every
time I walk through a casino it’s like
there’s old people with oxygen and
smoking you know that’s a high-risk
group senior retirement communities for
sure also hospitals of course have
immunocompromised people so we have lots
of people that can be at risk of
Legionella in these building water
systems and in terms of when to sample
for Legionella in a in a situation where
there’s a shutdown you want to sample
two to three weeks prior to occupancy
and this actually is also true with
construction and that two to three week
period of time allows the the culture
results to come back discussion to be
had with you and your client and perhaps
even their water management team and
then an action to occur in response to
those results and so if they’re negative
on you go nope no problem but if they’re
positive then you’d have an opportunity
to orchestrate a disinfection procedure
if that’s necessary and then he also
went on to say you know certainly if
there’s any discolored colorization of
the water brown water events should be
reported obviously to maintenance
personnel and you should be aware and
let your clients know what does that
brown water me because I don’t think
they would put two and two together that
it means there’s potential there for
increased risk of Legionella so you know
what we’re really all about here is
preventing Legionnaires disease and so
know the risk when you see it don’t
ignore it so I think for your viewers if
you are building operators and managers
this webinar helps you understand where
the risk is and what you need to be
doing about that risk and if you’re the
water treatment professional then it
behooves you to help educate your
clients about those risks so that you
can help them avoid those cases of
Legionnaires disease after reopening so
there’s lots of resources for water
management and and guidance for shutdown
and startup procedures whether it’s a
potable water system a cooling tower
ice machines all of that is out there
for you to access and so lots and lots
of material out there the 2000 national
a guideline New York City and New York
State have guidance for cooling towers
and health care facilities the ASHRAE
standard 188 certainly the AWT 2019 a
guidance document the newly minted
cooling technologies to guideline 159 if
it’s a health care facility you know you
want to make sure that your clients are
aware that there’s requirements for a
risk assessment and water management for
health care facilities and then just
published this month the ASHRAE
guideline Update now called 2020 so all
of these are available to you to help
you with the details and we are not
together long enough to go through all
of that today but I will touch upon a
couple of things and a couple of these
documents and certainly ASHRAE standard
188 is really the industry standard in
terms of water management risk
assessment water safety plans but we
really want to focus on risk mitigation
and decontamination which are touched
upon in the ASHRAE standard but you know
you’ve probably heard people talk about
this standard it doesn’t it tells you
what to do it’s a pretty high level
guidance document in terms of a standard
not necessarily what to do and there’s
more information on the what how in the
ASHRAE guideline of 2020 and so I said
it was newly minted May 1st it became
available for purchase so you can go to
the ASHRAE bookstore and by managing the
risk of legionellosis associated with
building water systems and and some good
bedtime reading for you and then also
I’d say some very good bedtime reading
is is the Cooley Technology Institute
guideline 159 i sat on both of these
committees legionellosis guideline
practices to reduce the risk of
legionellosis from evaporative heat
projection equipments and the guideline
159 is a lot of detail and is very
specific to cooling tower operation of
maintenance so lots of great information
on start-up and shutdown of cooling
towers in the CTI guideline 159 things I
like it by-god language a nine it’s
really performance-based approach and it
emphasizes microbial control as part of
an effective water management program to
control the risk for Legionnaires
disease
what about controlling so you’ve gone
through this process you’ve cultured for
Legionella and maybe you finally janela
has had a party in your pipes you know
what do you do and typically it’s shock
disinfection the one thing I want to
tell people and they want to do flushing
and there’s nothing wrong with flushing
the outlets meaning moving fresh water
through the building at a periodic pace
but I want to say it’s not disinfection
so it may increase overall water hygiene
but it doesn’t disinfect or remove
Legionella from the water distribution
system so you may temporarily reduce
Legionella at that fixture but
Legionella is throughout the water
distribution system it’s there it’s
within and throughout so don’t kid
yourself that you’ve controlled
Legionella risk by just flushing the
water so flushing alone does not
eliminate that risk so when do you
consider disinfection and what are is
the guidance there and so in the
guideline 2020 there’s two
recommendations here about when to
consider disinfection that I thought was
apropos
so here’s in Section five point three
point to consider disinfection where
facilities where hot and cold water
temperatures that are recommended for
Legionella control can’t be maintained
through the entire system hmm that
applies to shut down doesn’t it and then
facilities where there’s not a
consistent measureable disinfectant
residual in all hot and cold water taps
well first of all you’re almost never
going to have a residual of the
disinfectant that comes into your
building in your hot water because it
dissipates with heat but you know people
think that if we’ve got a disinfectant
residual at the cold water tab
we’re good and most of you know that the
amount of chlorine or monochloramine
that comes into the building is pretty
low by the time it gets there and
there’s you know not much of a
requirement in terms of code or
regulatory requirement for in that
residual to be very high so the point I
want to make by these two things that
are in Section five point three point
two in the ASHRAE 2020 guideline is this
describes a shutdown situation you know
where there’s low or no flow so you want
to consider disinfection now I mentioned
to you that we can’t kind of go through
all that we want to touch upon today in
terms of specific guidance but I didn’t
want to leave you lacking and so what
we’ve done here in special pathogens
laboratories we’ve written a white paper
which we will deliver to you
electronically all right that talks
about operation of potable water systems
during this low occupancy or low flow
situation if specific guidance about
reopening the buildings after the
shutdown help you it also helps you to
address specific things that need to be
in the water safety management program
and plan and to address the shutdown
when and where to test because this is
not routine circumstances by any stretch
of the imagination and with regard to
sampling for Legionella this is a
special circumstance so what you might
be doing in terms of sampling for
Legionella on a routine basis whether
it’s a cooling tower or a potable water
system this is different and so you need
a special sampling plan specific for
this circumstance you you know some some
details in the white paper about
disinfection as a corrective action and
that’s the vernacular for water
management safety plans and then some
highlights on documentation you know you
want to make sure that whatever you’re
doing you document thoroughly not only
for your protection but also protection
of the building owner you know because
part of this is really exercising due
diligence and early on in our talk here
I talked about the little lawyer on my
shoulder which is always there kind of
whispering in my ear for the benefit of
our clients you know you may
be called upon to produce some evidence
of why you’ve done you’ve done how
effective it is and that you’ve done it
properly and what I also tell people is
that these disinfection shock treatments
for example with chlorine are not simple
exercises they’re extremely complicated
lots of documentation that’s needed to
document tag out a fixtures a measured
concentration of disinfectant at each
fixture so there’s a lot to it and I
think it’s important for your clients
and for you to understand the complexity
of that no simple task so in terms of
the road that we’re on in preventing
building associated Legionnaires disease
you know this says are we there yet are
we there yet we there yet we have come a
long way and what I usually say is you
know my experience over many many
decades now of preventing Legionnaires
disease in building water systems I like
to say I’m not old I’m experienced and
someday you can you’ll get to that point
Trace and you’ll be able to use that
phrase I just had a birthday I don’t
feel that I’m far from it now you’re
only as old as you that’s right that’s
right and so we’ll be forever young but
you know I think I have an optimistic
and most of you the know mean on the
glass half-full person and there’s lots
to be hopeful about in terms of our
ability to correctly generis disease and
one of the things that gives me hope is
that we’re talking about it as we have
come out of these buildings shut down so
that means to me that the risk of
legionellosis associated with shut down
buildings and low occupancy is better
understood today than ever before we’ve
got lots of outbreaks that have occurred
after construction shutdowns that help
us understand that this is a real risk
and then the other thing that gives me
hope is this publication that just came
out last month and this is the assc
professional qualification standard for
Legionella
safety and management personnel and you
can buy this from a SSC now and what it
is is it’s really important to set a
minimum standard for knowledge about
Legionella for people that are doing
Legionella water management service
services and so this sets a minimum
criteria for those folks and provides a
certification so what that means is you
have the standard asse and i atmo will
have a training and a tensley and you
will be certified as having that basic
knowledge so this will go a long way to
providing that sort of baseline help in
educating people about Legionella
prevention so I’m very very excited
about that and of course the key to
prevention of Legionnaires disease as we
say here at special pathogens
laboratories you must test to protect
there is no way to know about Legionella
risk indirectly you know you can’t use
heterotrimeric clanking out you can’t
use pH you can’t use pouring levels or
temperature unless you were running your
system at 150 degrees which none of them
do so you really have to test for
Legionella I’m just really excited to be
working together to end Legionnaires
disease and that’s really the only way
we can do it is together so thank you so
much and of course stay safe and thank
you so much for listening to my
presentation well Janet thank you so
much for sharing that I know we’ve
helped a lot of people you’ve given us a
lot of great advice but a couple of
questions have popped up since you’ve
been talking and one is in a perfect
world of course we would test at least
two weeks prior to a building opening up
we’re all working with building owners
and managers that have not been into
their buildings for several weeks the
owners are now pushing the managers to
get occupancy up and going and they’re
thinking about things on how they’re
going to keep people out of their
conference room or to people only in an
elevator and they’re just not thinking
about their water systems what is your
recommendation on how somebody like
myself
can get them to start thinking about
that when they have so many other things
on their plate that they think are more
urgent so this is what I think about and
I talked about this in our last
newsletter as you know Co bid is bad
enough you know Kovan affects countries
legionella affects you affects your
staff your employees your clients that
come into your building and then if
there’s a Legionnaire problem it will
compound your economic recovery you know
it’s incumbent upon us and my mother
used to say this know you’re in history
right and the history teaches us that if
you ignore the risk of Legionella in an
unoccupied space you may pay a very very
big price so we you can share with them
you know these outbreaks that have
occurred out there whether it’s a
shutdown of cooling tower
it’s a shutdown of a hotel or healthcare
we know what can happen and the best way
to prepare and to avoid bad outcomes is
to do things proactively as you said at
the beginning so that you know whether
there’s a problem nobody that runs a
building doesn’t want to know that
there’s a problem with their mechanicals
they don’t want to start up a cooling
foam I hope not that maybe you can tell
me differently but you know you don’t
want to start up a cooling tower and the
fan isn’t working or there’s it’s bent
or broken you know so the analogy is the
same you don’t want to start up a water
system without really doing some due
diligence in terms of maintenance start
up and then check to make sure that what
you’ve done is effective in mitigating
the risk of Legionnaires disease so
that’s the reason that you want to do it
is you want to have peace of mind you
want to avoid what can be disastrous and
maybe maybe talking about the costs of
outbreaks even
case you know the health department
comms shuts you down you know water
restrictions hyper chlorination events
the dollars escalate to hundreds of
thousands of dollars in a few weeks and
so this is a movie that I’ve seen many
many times and it’s not like guardians
of the galaxy like I want to watch that
over and over again it’s a movie I don’t
want to see over and over again and so
those are the things that you can
communicate and you you might even think
about you know some water treaters you
know sort of provide a document to the
people that says you know I’ve talked to
you about Legionella testing and and
educated you about it and then you sign
you’ve acknowledged that I’ve talked
with you about it because you it’s two
things you’re protecting yourselves and
your clients right so you know if
something bad happens you know you’re
gonna get blamed and you’re gonna be
dragged into court and I know about that
because I’ve helped many of the large
readers like that get into that
situation not because they’ve done
something wrong but because everybody
gets sued when there’s a lawsuit now you
have to defend yourself so if you’ve got
some documentation you know that proves
that you’ve done some counseling about
this risk and and what your
recommendations are that will protect
you and it also makes that person take
pause they’re like no I’m I’m
responsible for this and you’re
reminding me that I’m responsible for
this and now I feel a little
uncomfortable saying no and you’re just
doing it for their own good
and you can say that you know I you know
this is often an uncomfortable
conversation but I my job is to look out
for you and this is what needs to happen
in order for you to be safest and the
people in your building to be safe well
let’s say we’ve done all that or maybe
they’ve started up the building before
we’ve had a chance to talk to them and
now we’ve got a stagnating system that’s
gone back online what do you advise we
do with that well you still need to know
whether the risk is there right so you
can always take some corrective action
so now you’re maybe
saying okay in in again the vernacular
of water safety management when there is
a change the plan tells you to talk
about what that change means and what
should we do to make sure that the
system is safe and part of that is
obviously testing for Legionella so so
you okay well all right we’re up and
going let’s make sure the cooling tower
now that’s up and going and it’s got its
normal concentration and biocide that
Legionella is under control check
decorative water features test them
check and certainly your hot water
distribution system check so this is
part of good water management / ASHRAE
188 for general buildings and then CMS
and CDC for health care so when we’re
looking at testing a stagnated system
what are the best places to test since
the waters not circulating well it’s not
that much different than your what we
would recommend for routine monitoring
with the exception that you know it’s
under these circumstances so cooling
towers we always recommend every cell if
it’s a multi cell operation be tested
even though you know you might be only
using one of the cells you want to know
is the disinfectant being distributed to
the other cells is there risk there you
know because we’ve seen that movie
before and then in water distribution
systems you would pick representative
locations you’re sampling the hot water
immediate draw the ice machines and
things like that that may have been
offline and brought back online
you’re usually checking those and then
of course you know water features for
example if it’s a casino they have lots
of those you want to make sure that
those are checked off as having been
checked for Legionella which any you’ve
mentioned the little lawyer on your
shoulder numerous times I’m curious does
he or she have a name I’d be happy to
take suggestions there we go those
directly I can’t tell you that they’re
very well dressed of course of course
yeah thank you so much for sharing this
information I know you’re gonna join the
mastermind group in just a few days
where they’re gonna ask their questions
directly to you you’re doing so much to
educate the community on Legionella and
things that we can do so people don’t
have to suffer at Legionnaires disease
so thanks for all of that and thanks for
everything that you do for us water
treaters no thank you and it’s just
great to be with you and thanks for the
opportunity to trace and especially
great to be with you because you made my
day a sunny day just because thank you
so much scale donation I hope you got
some great information from that
interview with dr. stout and here is the
cold hard fact the country is starting
to open up I know that’s become a
political issue on one side or another
well folks we’re water treaters we need
to put the political stuff aside and we
need to realize that we need to get out
there and help our customers make better
decisions so I think loaded with the
information that you just heard from my
interview with Janet style you can have
some good clear conversations with your
customers now they’re not thinking about
a lot of these things they’re just
thinking they’ve got to get their
buildings up and running they’ve got to
get their facilities up and running
they’re not thinking about what is in
their pipes it’s up to you to help them
think that way and give them some
potential solutions so they’re not
negligent and just simply flipping the
switch and bringing people back in
sedation next week we’re going to hear
from my friend Mark Lewis CWT we’re
actually supposed to hear from mark
Lewis today but I know we all needed the
information on getting our buildings
back up and running so that’s why Janet
stout snuck in here to our productions
schedule folks I would love it if you
could share this information with as
many water treaters as you know and any
of those webinars that I mentioned at
the top end of the show that you would
help you please go to scaling up h2o
comm go to resources and then go to the
proactive webinar series and you know
share those webinars with whoever you
like watch those webinars it’s my hope
that during this entire time we look at
what we can affect we look at being
proactive hence the name the proactive
webinar series because the human body
the human mind doesn’t easily go there
we have to force ourselves to see what
we’re in control of I think by default
we just think about what we don’t have
control of and folks that is a spiral
down to not being very productive at
anything so folks please help yourselves
to all this information if this sounds
good to you this all came from the
rising tide mastermind so if you would
like to join the rising tide mastermind
or at least just find out what it is you
can go to scaling up h2o com forward
slash mastermind and I got to tell you I
would not be in the position that I am
right now
had I not have been a member of the
rising tide mastermind the the people in
the rising tide mastermind really pushed
me to find new information to share that
with them and because of that my company
myself got a lot of great information
out of that that we were able to share
heck we were able to use it folks please
take care of each other out there and I
will come with another brand new episode
next week with a Marc Lewis episode that
was supposed to air today and I will
talk to you later how the great week
folks
you