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welcome to scaling up H2O the podcast where we scale up on knowledge so we don’t scale up our systems my name is
Trace Blackmore I get to host this fantastic podcast folks episode
285. I am just so amazed that well we have well over 285 episodes if you’ve
listened to this podcast you know I tried to be creative when we first started numbering and I don’t know why
we did that but well over 300 episodes and I want to thank you for being a
member of the scaling up nation of course without you we would not have a podcast I would just be speaking and
nobody would hear the words that I’m saying and there’s no fun in that I do
that all the time and it’s just not as fun as when you listen to the podcast and then share it with other people that
you know will find the podcast interesting giving them something to Aspire to do maybe we think differently
I love the stories that I get when people say that they tried something new
because they listened to this podcast and I love that the podcast is a
catalyst for you doing what you wanted to do all along maybe making the job a
little bit better better and the way that you knew it could be all along but
the podcast is just that little push to get you there and I want to thank all of
you for doing all the things that you do to make this show as successful as it is
and success is making the water treatment industry better one water
treater at a time so I know that is you listening so I want to thank you for
that and I also want to thank you for letting all of the other water Traders
know that we have a podcast out there that’s just for us that’s scaling up H2O podcast and we are growing strong each
and every day it’s amazing how many people are finding us and how many
people are riding in and letting us know what it is that they want to hear on the
podcast there’s hardly an episode that goes by where I am not saying thank you to the people that have written in or
gone to scaling up h2o.com and left a voicemail for us or they’ve written in
and gone to our show ideas page because those are the people that ensure that
we’re going to have another 300 episodes so thank you for that if you’ve got an idea or a guest or just anything you
think would be beneficial for us to talk about here on scaling up H2O don’t keep
that to yourself please go to scalinguph2o.com and like I said you can either leave us a voicemail or you can
go to our show ideas page and then we will make sure to get that in our running list of topics thank you and it
advance for all of that so many people have also let us know
that they really enjoy going to the scalingup h2o.com webpage because all of
our events in the Water World are listed there so you have a One-Stop place to
find everything that you need that’s going on that surrounds water so if you
have your calendars out and if you don’t don’t worry about it because I will have all of this listed I say I it’s our
wonderful staff we’ll be on our webpage on the events page and it will even put
an event in your calendar so first off the Asia’s Pacific Smart Water Utilities
2022 is taking place December 14th through 15th in Singapore so to learn
more about this you can go to our show notes page and you actually no go to our show notes page we used to keep it on
our show notes page that’s why I say that out of habit but we have a special page now that’s marked events that
allows you to see everything that’s going on in a much more user-friendly
format another item you might want to check out while you’re there is the 2023 cleantech Forum of North America that’s
taking place January 23rd through 25th in San Francisco California this is
where they connect the largest generation of startups investors and corporations looking for new partners or
co-investors around the water industry so this is something that sounds
interesting to you we’ve got all that information on scalingup h2o.com on the events page almost the last one that
I’ll mention the water environmental Federation is having their 38th annual water reuse Symposium right here in my
hometown of Atlanta Georgia that’s going to be March 5th through 8th and if you
are thinking about attending that show you might see me there it’s send my
hometown and I would love to talk to you and hear all the things that you are
finding at the wef show here in Atlanta Georgia March 5th through 8th all that
information you can find at scalingup h2o.com now one more thing that I am
going to mention it is my favorite thing to do the entire year and that is being
one of the trainers at the Technical Training seminars that the association of water Technologies has twice a year
so depending on where you live or where you want to go we normally have one on
the east side one on the west side so the West installment is going to be
February 21st through 24th at San Diego California what a great place to go in
February so to find out more about that you can go to our show notes page or you can go to our events page and the east
installment is going to be March 29th through April 4th and that’s going to be
in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania folks there is so much going on with those training
classes of course if you are trying to Bone up on what you need to know new in
the water treatment Industries we have a fundamental and applications class if you are somebody that does water
management plans or wants to start doing Water Management plans well you want to make sure you go to the West installment
of that February 21st through 24th where you can enroll in the asse 12080
training and become certified in that maybe you want to learn more about sales
well that will be at both the East and the West I mentioned the fundamentals and applications also both the East and
West the RO filtration training is both the east and west and water treatment
training mean is also East and West however if you want to enroll in the
Wastewater that’s going to be in Pittsburgh only this is one of my favorite classes because people that
really know what they’re talking about are in the Wastewater class to teach you what they have learned from years of
experience and they just paint a picture for you like you were on site at a plant
and you get to get your hands dirty yes you will get dirty in this class but
you’re going to come back with so much information so for more about that go to
our events page at scalingop h2o.com and by all means if you are going to be at
any of those specifically the wef in March in Atlanta or either the technical
trainings I’m going to be there I want to see you so make sure we find each
other Nation as you know one of the things that we try to do is see how well our
podcast is doing with various topics how many people are listening how many people are sharing we’re trying to
figure out what we can do better based on what you do once the podcast is
delivered to you and one of the things that we’re going to do today is we’re going to bring back our most listened to
episode that was episode 212. we aired that back in September of 2021 and this
is where we were talking about what do you do if your system tests positive for
Legionella so here is our Encore presentation of Alberto camazi
my lab partner today is Dr Alberto camazzi of Santa pure how are you
Alberto okay thank you for having me um yeah so my name is Alberto comati I’m
originally from Italy you can probably tell from my accent hopefully everybody will understand my my accent here
um I graduated the University of Milan a few years ago um I got a PhD in industrial chemistry
and chemical engineering in the same University as I was doing that I did an internship at the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign for a few months during my college time I used to work on
water treatment and also oil and gas so that’s how I got involved with Sandy
pure and that’s how I got to know them because we were collaborating on on some projects when I was working in the lab I
got to know them I got my PhD I asked them if they were looking for somebody they said yes they were looking for
somebody to get trained in Italy and and then move here to America so I said well
let’s do it that’s how I packed up on my suitcase moved to Philadelphia and started to work for Santa pure us where
right now I am the technical director and business development manager and in
particular Santa Cruz deals with supplemental disinfection Technologies for water hygiene and water disinfection
I’m also a member of the ashrae 188 committee and I’m a member also of the
awwa premise Plumbing committee what are some of the things that you’re talking about in the ashrae 188 committee well
the Usher 188 right now just uh published the ashrae guideline 12. so
there’s been definitely a lot of work to get that published it has been a you know a process that required quite a few
years with some public reviews I kind of joined Azure 188 when that was already
um in process so it’s very interesting to be a part of that group because you
can literally talk with world-class scientists and with the market leaders
in the nation about uh water treatment and water hygiene so it’s definitely a
good experience because you can bring your background at the table but then there are a lot of knowledgeable people
at the table and you can definitely learn a lot by joining those committees for sure what’s something you miss about Italy
that you just can’t get in Philadelphia that’s that’s an easy question uh that there is an easy answer it’s it’s Pizza
there’s good pizza here in Philly but um you know there are also a couple of good
cheesesteak places where I can replace the pizza with a good Cheesesteak here in Philadelphia so it definitely means
that but um it’s easy enough to go back home from Philadelphia it’s not that crazy at least before the pandemic I
could fly out from New York and sometimes I flew back home just for a weekend for a long weekend so it’s not
that big of a deal but Phil is a good place especially when the Eagles won the Super Bowl for sure
so Pat sergino’s neither of them James or South there we go we’re all doing
Cheesesteak wrong exactly exactly those are those those were the commercial places you know where the jewelries go
let’s put it that way there’s no doubt about it we’ve had a lot of shows about legionelle I think we’ve cleared up a
lot of misconceptions about Legionella about how the water treater should talk with their customers about Legionella
but something we’ve never done before is have somebody that’s directly involved
with the secondary disinfection of that so that’s what I’m really excited about
today that we can talk to you and talk about what we need to know when we do
have a Legionella issue what are our options how do we go about remediating
that all of the questions that surround that so are you ready for that absolutely can’t wait so let’s just
start there so let’s say in scaling up Nation if you have not reviewed some of the episodes prior to this episode to
learn more about Legionella I’ll have a list on my show notes page so you can bone up on the topic and join us in in
this conversation armed with what we’re talking about so let’s say we now have a
Legionella Water Management plan and in that plan it says that if we got X
amounts of Legionella bacteria that we have to do some sort of remediation and
now we’re there we’re now talking with somebody like yourself and we need to
get something set up what do we do yeah good question good question and you know
there is not a silver bullet here there are different options that are usually Written In The Water Management plan or
there are also different options that a building manager or building owner can
look for in the marketplace there are different techniques to either prevent or remediate Legionella the first one of
course is best is good water management practice so you know flash making sure
that your temperature is well controlled but in some cases that is not enough so
in some cases some buildings get to the point to what you just said you know
they have a legion and a problem so what am I doing after I figure out that I
have a legional problem well first of all you need to test for Legionella unfortunately as of right now uh testing
for regional is not mandatory so it’s a sort of a proactive action that the
building is staking Water Management plans might suggest to
test for adrianella but it’s not as I said it’s not mandatory but in my opinion that is the only way to validate
that your plan is working otherwise you’re kind of blind and you don’t know
if you actually have a lesion or problem or do not have a legion of a problem or you don’t know if your plan is working
or not working so let’s pretend that we’re testing for Legionella we find Legionella what are
the options that we have usually what a lot of buildings do as soon as they have
a problem with Legionella they can Implement and see them flush so they
increase the temperature of the water to a point where that temperature can kill
Legionella so usually above 160 and then they start to flash the system there are
some drawbacks with these remediation technique uh the first one is that it’s actually difficult to bring 160 water
everywhere in the plumbing system it could damage the plumbing system you
could scold somebody and technically could not be effective over the long
term because even if I’m taking care of the problem right now from tomorrow I
still can have some Legionella coming in from from the city because that’s how Legionella comes in in my building comes
in from the sea water and plus as I said if we don’t get to that temperature
everywhere in the system there might be still some Regional in the system that can eventually recolonize the building
water system second technique of remediation for Legionella
um are the point of use filters so that is a physical barrier that we put
between the building water system and the occupants of a building and that
physically prevents the bacteria to go through the filter so typical Legionella
filters are between 0.1 and 0.2 microns the actual Regional bacteria is bigger
than that so it cannot physically go through the filter so the filter unless
it’s not working right or some mechanical problems happens gives you pretty much a hundred percent uh
protection against Legionella so in this case it’s easy to think uh well why don’t we install filters in every faucet
and every showers in the country but it’s not an effective solution first of all from a financial standpoint it’s not
cost effective second these filters need to be replaced on a regular basis so
they need to be replaced every month or every two months or every three months so it requires a lot of Manpower of
course if we think about a small building it might not sound like a big problem but let’s think about a big
Healthcare facility or a healthcare campus we’re talking about thousands of
faucets and fixtures there so it becomes very hard to handle that and to track of
what filters are being used and what needs to be replaced so what buildings
usually do is to install these filters just in the areas where
immunocompromised people are such as the ICU or Urban EQ so in those areas where
there are really immunocompromised patients so we need that sort of 100
protection or the filters are also used
in response of an outbreak or or a case uh you know if the state gets involved
uh they want to do something quick uh so they can say okay let’s install the
filters they can usually you know whatever supplier whatever filter supplier you choose they can usually
ship the filters overnight everywhere in the country so it’s a very Plug and Play solution over the the short term and
then the third uh type of techniques is called supplemental disinfectant so here
we can divide the disinfectant or the disinfection process let’s say in two
different categories so we have the shock treatment or we have the actual
supplemental disinfectant treatment so the shock treatment as the word shock
say it’s something that again in in a response of an outbreak a building can
shock chlorinate the building plumbing system with either chlorine or chlorine
dioxide or in some cases even with monochloramine and they usually increase
the level of disinfectant to a point that is much higher than what is allowed in drinking water so at that point the
building needs to go on water restriction nobody can use the water they usually leave the building with the
high level of disinfectant in the building plumbing system for few hours and then they flush it out again this is
kind of heat and flush uh it could be effective over the short term not really
effective over the long term because we have no effect on what’s coming in from the CD from the day after and also I
could damage Plumbing materials and it can disrupt the biofilm to a point where
it looks like it’s working but then you test after after a month and your levels are coming back up
so the supplemental disinfectant instead are a continuous treatment that a
building Implement and so there is a chemical feeder that keeps feeding
chemicals as needed in the building in order to maintain the disinfectant level
to a point that is safe for Legionella remediation and this is done mostly because when the
public water utility delivers the water to the distribution system by the time
the water flows from the point of entry of the distribution system to the point of entry of your building
that is in fact and concentration will drop and most likely will drop below uh
to the point where it’s not effective against legionel anymore I think that
most of the states require 0.2 parts per million at the point of entry of the water distribution system I think
Pennsylvania requires 0.2 at the point of venture of the building I think New Jersey was talking about raising the
levels at Point 50 at the point of venture of the building but it’s first of all it’s very challenging due to the
nature of a public water utility second even if we’re talking about 0.2
or 0.50 you will likely not be enough to uh keep the building safe from
legionelle so that’s why in you know most of the cases a water management plan uh suggests the use of a
supplemental disinfectant so we can make sure that the disinfectant levels in the building are at a level that are enough
to kill the Legionella that he’s in the building already and kill the Legionella that is eventually entering the building
water system Alberto a lot of people will try heat and flush first is there any way to
verify that we have reached 160 degrees through every part of the building yes
uh the way to do that is when you flush the water from all the features it’s
physically going there with a you know a thermometer and or a temperature probe
and measure the temperature well if you do that you’re sure that you’re you have reaching that temperature at the fixture
but you’re not sure that you’re reaching that temperature everywhere your plumbing system plus if we think this is
about the time that we’re required to do that for each fixture we’re talking
about hours and hours of of work and plus these are all hours where the
building needs to be on on water restriction as well because you can deliver water at 160 fahrenheit to for
human consumption something I’ve seen with filters is people forget to change them they’re you mentioned one two three
I’ve seen some that are good for six months and then you look at the dates and it was 18 months since it was
installed do they totally lose their effectiveness as they age I don’t think
that they lose their effectiveness one day after the expiration date but you
need to keep track of that because if something happens and then the state gets involved and then the filter was
supposed to be changed a month ago and but it wasn’t and somebody got sick in
that room then there is room for litigation in that case but I agree with you that’s why filters are usually used
in just certain areas of of the buildings I have to be honest though there are some apps that right now you
can install on your phone and there is a QR code on the filters where you can scan the QR code as you’re installing
the filters and then your app will tell you you know the filter in this room needs to be changed so it right now of
course it’s much easier to keep track of what needs to be done and what filters need to be changed but of course there
is always the human factor into it you know there is always a notification that
will come through on Friday afternoon at 4 30 pm and somebody will will forget
about that you know so yes that is definitely a problem with the use of filters you know somebody forgets to to
change them and um you know if something happens that could be a big big problem
and then the last thing you mentioned was secondary disinfection and we we’ve
got I guess two different flavors of that if you will we have the continuous and then we have when somebody just
brings something in for remediation so can we break those two down when is one
appropriate over the other one and get your experience so usually a shot disinfection it’s
something that uh is usually done in response to an outbreak so there is a
case again the state is involved uh you need to do something quick so you call
your water treatment provider and they can come in the same day they can just
hook up assist them either at the point of entry of your building or on your domestic hot water system or both and
then they can just start to over feed a disinfectant in the system and that’s
something that you do for a few hours and then you need to flush but again same drawbacks of heated flush so water
restriction a lot of time you have to flash the entire building you in this case as you asked how can you make sure
that you reach a certain concentration now here you got a certain temperature sorry now here you have to make sure
that you reach a certain concentration everywhere in the system which is you know sometimes it’s just possible to do
that and a lot of different building water systems are very different so they
have different design different risers so it’s very hard to implement something
like that in a building that you don’t really know how the plumbing system is designed whereas a supplement of
disinfect disinfectant system it’s something that you install and it’s operating 24 7. so it keeps
feeding disinfectant as needed in the building water system in order to keep the levels to a point where it’s
effective against the Legionella or other waterborne pathogens and of course
there are different controls based on different disinfectants that can be implemented in order to feed the
disinfectant into into a building when we talk about supplemental disinfectant we usually talk there are three EPA
listed disinfectants that are chlorine chlorine dioxide and monochloramine and
copper silver is used as well as a technology for as a supplemental
disinfectant and there are also other Technologies out in the in the marketplace such as mixing oxidants
there are different chlorine dioxide generators that generate chlorine dioxide in different ways so I mean
there are a lot of solutions out there in the market for sure in your experience does one of those
disinfectants work better than another it depends on the what is the Target and
what is the application I would say that the most commonly used right now in the
country are monochloramine chlorine dioxide and copper silver chlorine it’s something easy that can be
used because it’s basically just a small dosing pump that feeds chlorine in the building but it is widely reported in
the literature that chlorine is not the the best option for Legionella remediation and listing buildings there
are a lot of drawbacks with chlorine between monochloramine chlorine dioxide and copper silver of course each
technology is as its own pros and cons I would say specifically for building
water system monochloramine is probably the best one just because it’s more stable it’s a
much more stable molecule and being more stable it is just the physical and chemically easier to carry a consistent
residual throughout the uh the building water system of course then there are
some other application for Legion letter remediation skill but let’s talk about
processed water and maybe the contact time it’s so short so then we need to
use a stronger disinfectant so in that case we might need to use chlorine dioxide you know so it kind of depends
on uh what the application is but I would say for just strictly talking about building then probably
monocloromies is the best option there’s probably a listener out there and they’ve just received a phone call from
one of their customers and they say that they want to do supplemental disinfection what should this listener
start with what questions should they ask the customer how do they go about making sure they
install it in the right process what are all the things that needs to go through that person’s mind as they’re gearing up
for this good question Yeah because sometimes from the building standpoint it’s a lot
to process you know especially if you’re in a situation when you need to make some decision quick so as I said it’s
each building water system is different but it’s um there are some things that needs to
be that need to be taken into account where installing a supplemental
disinfection system I would say first of all is talk with the building and
understand what is their target so is their target just Legionella or are they
concerned about different waterborne pathogens then the second question is and this is
the million dollar uh question is are we going to install the supplemental
disinfection system on the co-incoming cold water from the city or just on the
domestic hot water system what I’ve seen here is that a lot of people especially
when you’re talking with people from the actual facility from the building if
they don’t have a water treatment background they might think that treating the entire cold water is better
because as I’m treating the cold water coming into the facility then if I feed
the disinfectant there then I’m going to treat the entire water in the building
however it is not that easy so what is what matters at the end of the day is to
establish a consistent residual for regional Remediation in the domestic
cold water system because Legionella is a thermal tolerant pathogen that grows
and colonizes well in warm water environments so we want to make sure that we carry that residual all the way
into the domestic hot water system in some facilities due to the nature of
the plumbing system and when I say the nature is how far is the domestic hot water system from the point of venture
of the building how long does it take to turn over the entire domestic hot water
system are there storage tank how many risers are in the building
sometime if we feed the disinfectant just in the cold water it could be
impossible to achieve a consistent disinfectant into the domestical water system so the first thing to do is get
it’s get familiar with the building water system understand that and make
the application where it’s needed what we personally suggest and it’s due
for legionary remediation purposes is to make the application on the Domesticity called water treatment because that is
where the problem uh occurs and that’s where you want to fix the problem but of
course water treatment firms they can they can do both they can install the system on the cold or install the system
on the hot our personal recommendation is to install it on the HUD and then we can explain that to the customer it could be
hard to explain uh this old Concepts to a person who is not familiar with water treatment but you know at the end of the
day a water treatment provider yeah you kind of have to give your customer what your customer wants but you want to give
your customer what is going to work at the end of the day but again I say the hot water and cold water it depends
where we are in the country you know if we’re down in Florida or California or Texas even if it’s technically cold
water during summer then water could reach temperatures that could start to
promote the growth of Legionella so in those specific cases it might make sense
to treat both systems so that’s something that the water treatment provider needs to be aware and then
other things is definitely which kind of disinfectant is the municipality using
uh what what are the level of disinfectants coming in from the municipality sometimes are very low
sometimes are kind of high based on where the facility is and you know see if there are as I said get familiar with
the with the building water system in order to uh to make the application to make the application right for for your
customer this is something that also you know when we talk about
um what a water management plan there is usually a water management team so as a
water treatment provider is trying to help a his customer we in answering
these questions there are usually other people sitting at the table in order to try to figure out what the best option
is it’s not just about the water trigger and the building owner or manager
you mentioned finding out what disinfection the municipality is using
is there any time you don’t want to use one of our secondary disinfectants
because the municipality is using something no I wouldn’t say that it’s
just important to understand what is coming in from from the city so you can
make your application properly so let’s pretend that you know the level that is
coming in from the city will vary based on season and based on time so it’s not
going to be always the same throughout the year so I want to know what’s coming in so as the word supplemental say I
will just supplement what is necessary in order to achieve what I’m trying to achieve so let’s pretend that the
municipality is using monochloramine and I want to install a monochloramine system in the building I want to make
sure that I know what is coming in so I can just add on top of that what I need you know and control based on that as
well same if I’m using free chlorine or same if I’m feeding free chlorine on top
of monochloramine because if the seed is using monochloramine and I feed free chlorine on top of that uh there could
be some reaction that could lead some to certain products that um for you know
for the end user so for the building occupants could you know smell weird or something like that so this is drinking
water so you want to make sure that uh you make the application right with all
the different disinfectants we have to choose from are some better choices for
the building piping systems than others again it depends you know a disinfectant
is an oxidant so as an oxidant it will have the tendency to react and kill the
bacteria but of course you will have the tendency to react with plumbing
components you know gasket O-rings copper plastic Plumbing components so
yeah that’s a good question and that’s something that the water treatment provider should look at as well what are
the materials of construction you know most of the time is copper but there are some buildings where where they have
plastic so if they have plastics for sure using chlorine dioxide is not a
best is not a good idea because chlorine dioxide is a gas dissolving solution
that could oxidize the plasticizer and damage the plastic components of the
piping as well as if we’re using chlorine in a system that is made just
basically with copper we gotta take into account that we might see some feeding corrosion down the road um especially if
the application of the disinfectant is not made in the way it’s supposed to so
uh depends how you control it you know I’m not a big fan of controlling a
disinfectant in a building with a probe I like to control this in fact I’m in the building based on water flow so that
is a fixed number and it’s much more reliable than a pro but there are some water treatment provider a manufacturer
that control the disinfectant just with the probe and if the probe goes bad or it’s not calibrated you could overfill
the system and by overfitting the system you could potentially damage the plumbing components earlier you
mentioned other pathogens what are these other pathogens we should be looking at yeah good question so everybody is
concerned about Legionella right because all the literature out there is about
the Janella Usher 188 is about Legionella the guideline 12 is a bali Janella the CMS letter that came out in
2017 is about Legionella so everybody’s concerned about Legionella but legionell
is not the only pathogen out there that could be harmful for humans I would say
two other pathogens that are harmful for for humans are definitely pseudomonas
and non-tuberculosis mycobacteria when we have the conversation with the customers and that is definitely
something that we want to bring up because in some cases the customer is concerned about pseudomona so you may
want to make the application uh on the cold water in that case because the customer is concerned about pseudomonas
and another Point here you know as I said uh it’s all about you know for
everybody it’s all about Legionella and specifically it’s always all about Legion Airline Healthcare facilities so
there is this interest in reducing the risk associated with Legionella in a
healthcare environment because of course a hospital nursing homes that’s where
you know immunocompromised people are but it is not just about Healthcare facilities there is business and there
are opportunities out there in buildings that are non-healthcare facilities uh all big buildings with big recirculating
domestic hot water system are at risk for Legionella and you know hotels
casinos probably even more than a healthcare facilities because the volumes of water in there it’s much
higher but definitely the conversation in that case with the building
management it’s much harder because sometimes they don’t know about Legionella they don’t even know what it
is so it’s not just about Legionella and it’s not just about Healthcare facilities especially right now they
were coming out from covid and buildings are reopening there is definitely an increased awareness about legionnel and
other waterborne pathogens from people that come not just from the healthcare
industry are there special permits or licenses that are needed in order to
administer supplemental disinfection these days the very very very tough
question that uh you know when somebody has the questions there is not a uniform
answer you know to to this uh to this question it depends where you are in the
country so it depends in which state you are um different states different
requirements usually we can find three different approaches to that so the
first approach is there is not any requirement so the water that is
delivered from the city is already drinking water so it’s already safe so
you you want to apply supplement to this in fact and do that but you don’t have to apply for for anything then there are
some states such as Florida or Connecticut that say if you want to
implement the supplemental disinfectant on the cold water then you need to apply
for a permit whereas if you want to implement the disinfectant just on the
hot water then you do not need to apply for a permit simply because people don’t drink
usually don’t drink cold water and then there are states where you need to apply
for a permit regardless to where you’re applying the supplement that is in fact so this is the first step you know
understanding whether or not you have to apply for a permit or not second step is
okay I figure out I need to apply for a permit what do I need to do so first of all understand who is the authority
having jurisdiction in that state different state have different you know Authority having jurisdiction so if
they’re the TP Doh the EPA so you need to understand that first where to
actually apply for the permit then when you apply for the permit the common requirements of a permit are having an
engineering drawing stamped by a PE who is licensed in that uh in that state and
then there’s also a certified operator uh that needs to oversee the
supplemental disinfection equipment but again this is another step that it’s very difficult to understand okay so
does the certified operator need to be on site every day to just look at a
couple of pumps pumping chemical into the system or does he have to be in once
a month or since we can monitor the system online he can just check that
online and that is good enough it’s very difficult to understand that different states have different requirements in
regards to that plus when I say certified operator that it’s something
that is related to a public water supply so that is a guy who has a license to be
a an operator on a public water utility which is much different than a building
water system there are different skills that are required in a building water system versus a public water utility so
for example in a building water system water flows in different direction there
are cooling towers there are softeners there are boilers stuff that we don’t have in a public water supply building
water system has a recirculating hot water system a public water utility does
not a building water system has hot water heaters so there are some there is
definitely an overlap in the skills of course understanding disinfectants and
you know understanding the chemistry of these infectons but there are definitely some skills that do not match between uh
public water supply operator and a building water system operator so that is why right now there is a lot of work
in awwa in order to develop you know a training program for building Water
Systems so that will make it much easier for people in the water treatment industry to apply and to become
certified for that and I literally think that a person who has a cwt is
definitely qualified to run supplemented this infection system much better than a building who runs a
public water utility just because a person who has a cwt is used to a building water system they know what’s
going on in a building planning system so that is the you know the challenges that a building has to face when
applying a supplemental disinfectant is first of all do I need to apply for a permit if I do what are their
requirements unfortunately because of that sometimes the effect is the opposite
sometimes the building says you know what I don’t really want to apply for that I don’t really want to go through
the whole permit I don’t want to spend more money I don’t have an operator on site I my water treatment provider
doesn’t have an operator I don’t want to hire another person so unfortunately sometimes they say
well even if the Water Management plan suggests me I should implement the supplement that is in fact and I don’t
really want to spend that kind of money and so they actually are going the whole
permit application is made to protect the public health to make sure that the these infection application is made in
the proper way but sometimes it the requirements are so tough that the
building says you know what I’m not going to deal with that I’m gonna go for something that is not let as effective
as supplemental disinfectant but it’s too much for me to deal with that are you seeing more language that a
certified water technologist a cwt is qualified to be an operator that is
definitely something that as our member of that awwa premise Plumbing committee
that is definitely something I’m trying to push in order to make that happen because that is literally the way it is
uh you know we we want to make sure that the person who is finding the equipment has a good understanding of what is
going on in the building I’ve been to the awt classes um I’m pretty sure that just by adding
uh you know one or a couple of more lessons about a building water system
what is the portable side of a building water system definitely the water
treatment providers will from awt will definitely don’t have any issue in
learning that I mean we all know that some you know sometimes we get to work uh Santa Cruz does not do anything
direct you know we our customers are water treatment provider that then at
the end of the day we’ll deal with the end user and most of our customers are our awt firms and you know you
definitely know that some firms have been in buildings for more than 20 years because there is that kind of
relationship between between the building manager and the water treatment firm so literally those guys are the
ones that know how the water goes in that building I mean they’re probably they probably know more than the the
building people you know so that’s why it’s very important that a certification
for a building water operator will be developed and so that people from water
treatment firm can be certified and help uh with that you know and there are already certifications out in the market
for to better understand uh Legionella you know the AC 12080 that is definitely
a valuable certification I’m certified to that as well and that you know brings a lot of knowledge for for people that
might not be completely involved in in the legionnel and water hygiene Market when you go to a trade show such as the
association of water Technologies what are some of the most common questions you get asked about this
um it depends uh it depends who you’re talking with there are some firms that are very involved in the Legionella
market so they they’re more interested about the technology uh you know the
minority have some customers where they are applying supplemented disinfectants
so in that case there might just be more interested in okay tell me about your
system why does your system work better than others and what are the pros and the coins on the other hand there are
some firms that are not involved in the water hygiene market so in that case you get more questions about why should I
get involved in the water hygiene Market you know why should I start to treat drinking water and be involved in the
Legionella Market you know and well the way I always ask for that question is
first of all because you literally save lives by doing that you know you will
never know who you saved because you saved them but you know you definitely save some people it’s like wearing a
mask with covet you know you’re saving people but you don’t know who you’re sending so definitely because of Public
Health you’re actually helping Public Health uh you’re helping buildings but
also um you know you might doing the water treatment in the building and then all
of the sudden that building has a Legionella problem and they bring in another vendor to take care of the
Legionella and then because you didn’t have an offering because you didn’t pursue that market and then next thing
you know you are competing with the other vendor for your water treatment
that you were doing in that building you know cooling towers and boilers so you kind of want to keep yourself outside of
that area you know outside of that Jeopardy uh you know and because I’ve we’ve seen that happening a lot that you
know you don’t have the offering someone else comes in and then they start to you know go after your business that you’re doing in the building not that this is
the most important Quest reason definitely the most important is helping Public Health but this is something that
companies uh water treatment firms need to understand right now and also right
now as we’re coming out of the pandemic the awareness about Legionella and other
waterborne pathogen it’s much much higher than two years ago for two main
reasons the first one is that buildings now we’re reopening so they have to
disinfect and eventually test for the Janella so they might figure out that they have a problem and then they got to
do something about it and also just for an awareness of infections in general
you know before Kobe I think that a lot of people downplayed Legionella because
you don’t have that feeling with an infection and you kind of feel that it will never happen to you but right now
people are much more serious about pulmonary infections I mean at least from our standpoint we have seen a very
you know increased business between the end of 2020 and 2021 is definitely going
up very fast so you have thousands of water Traders listening to you right now how can you
help them avoid some of the pitfalls that you’ve seen some people experience what are those pitfalls and what
shouldn’t we be doing you know if if a supplemental disinfectant is misapplied then it could
be it could do more harm than good so as we were saying before you need to
understand what you have to look for and you need to make the application in the
correct way because otherwise you know if the application is not made in the correct way you’re not going to
remediate Legionella and somebody can get sick you know and I’ve seen that a
lot that some buildings uh decided to maybe apply the disinfectant just from
the cold water and then didn’t fix the problem and then they you know they had to go back and rethink about the whole
application there are a lot of case studies out there of failed uh
supplemental disinfection application because the application was not made right make sure that you get the right
equipment you get an agreement with safety features keep in mind that it’s drinking water people drink that water
water so we want to make sure that there is a level of precision that is much
higher than other form of water treatment make sure that when you um
pick a product manufacturer and you decide to go with a certain technology make sure that that manufacturer is
reliable so make sure that you have somebody who can help you if uh you know because at the end of the day the water
treater is the guy out in the field so make sure that you have support from that manufacturer if something happens
you know you have some money somebody you can call and you know maybe on a cell phone and make sure that they are
available I mean I wouldn’t say 24 7 but you know you want to make sure that if you’re if you need something
um you know get somebody who can help you get a product manufacturer who is experienced in in this market so they
can help you if something happens even in the case of um you know anything that can happen
from the failure of the equipment or you need to help the end user and then for
sure pass for Legionella uh you know if you test for Legionella it’s proactive it is
more expensive than done test yes but believe me it is much cheaper to be
proactive and test instead of not testing and then something happens and then the state
gets involved at that point you’re not on your clock anymore at that point the state will tell you how many times you
have to uh to test often you have to test and where you have to test so at that point
someone else is going to decide how much you have to test for Legionella you know so if you keep testing for Legionella
you figure out you have a problem then you know what to do you just follow your water management plan and you know what
to do you know how to fix it whereas if you just don’t do anything you’re just blind and then if something happens
you’re you’re in big big danger and unfortunately that is the message that
comes from a lot of time from facility people you get some people that are very proactive and they even want to pass
before they Implement anything to establish a baseline which I believe is the right way to do
um and then you have to some people that just say well you know what nobody tells
me I have to test so I don’t want to test because then if I test and I find it I gotta do something about it but
guess what nobody tells you you have to test but at the end of the day if you
are the building owner or the building manager you ultimately you are the
person who is responsible for the safety of the occupant of the building so even
if nobody told you you had to test if something happens to you the people in
your building you will be involved into the litigation process no matter what so
testing is the right thing to do if you could only get one point across today from our interview what do you
want that point to be my point will be that for a lot of water treatment firms
that are not involved into the water hygiene and Legionella Market to think
about getting involved in that market I feel that a lot of people are scared
about this Market because it’s drinking water and they think that they don’t want to deal with drinking water but at
the end of the day you are responsible no matter what even if you’re treating
the cooling tower because you know Legionella can grow in cooling power as well so I feel that some water treatment
firms decide that they don’t want to go down that path of the water hygiene Market but on the other hand I think
there will be a good idea at least to take into account the idea of well let’s
think about it you know let’s evaluate what are the pros and the costs let me think with some product manufacturer or
some consultant what are the business opportunities that are out there and that I can pursue if I enter this Market
well I have a few lightning round questions for you so we’re not quite done with the interview yet let’s do it
all right so I asked these of all my guests so you now have the power to go back to your first day working with
water pathogens what advice would you give yourself oh this is a tough question I I don’t know I would say that
when I started to work in these Market I always had really good teachers so my uh
boss back home and my boss here uh you know are really good teachers they can
you know they taught me well not just about the chemistry disinfectants but also about you know waterborne pathogens
in general so probably the advice that I would give myself is do as you did
listen to your boss you know and you won’t be you won’t regret that and uh yeah for sure and uh uh you know if
somebody gets involved in in this market definitely try to get involved even in
in organizations that have committees about you know Legionella and other waterborne pathogens because as I said
that’s where you literally find the world-class scientists that can teach you a lot what are the last few books
that you’ve read so unfortunately I don’t read all books I read a lot of uh
scientific literature so you know I read I think that the last uh Journal I read
was I think Journal of AWA a few weeks ago and of course as an Italian I read
recipe books because I like to cook so that’s what I like to do that that is for relaxing you know after you’re done
at work every day you go home and you uh read some good recipe and that you cook it favorite thing to cook it depends on
the depends on the time of the year I like to cook lasagna when it’s winter uh you know I like to cook that I like to
cook Milanese uh you know during during spring and fall so it kind of depends my
friends and I usually when we watch the Eagles every Sunday we usually uh you
know go to someone’s place and we do big dinner and someone Cooks you know every time so unfortunately sometimes even
even if it’s not a thing in Italy I had to cook spaghetti and meatballs so for
all the the the people here it is not a thing in Italy if you’re going to Rome don’t ask for that don’t just look at
you funny exactly well let me ask this question if there are people listening today that want to learn more about this
topic are there certain books or journals you would recommend to them about lasagna or about Legionella yes
about lasagna of course about supplemental disinfection about supplemental disinfection
um about Legionella in general I think there is a lot of information on the EPA
website on the EPA website there is a review of the technologies that uh have
been used for supplemental disinfectants so you know that is that is definitely a good point to start I think that back in
2019 there was a report published by the National Academy of Science which is free to download that is a very big
report but that is definitely something that can help people to you know understand the world of supplemental
disinfectants and then you know sign up for conferences like awt there is on NSF
Legionella conference every year I think this year is in two sessions one is already done was already done yeah I
don’t remember when the other one is but uh that is just specifically about Legionella so there is a lot to learn
there and then there are a lot of scientific peer-reviewed paper but for somebody who has to learn about
the topic that’s where I would start you know I would start from the EPA website the
National Academy of Science report and go to conferences to get familiar with you know to kind of frame the issue
frame the problem and frame what are the options to fix the problem and then after that you can do your homework and
find what are they you know the pros and cons of each technology you know when
Hollywood makes a movie about Dr Alberto camachi who plays you these are very
easy question you know why because I’m bald so I would say either Vin Diesel or
Bruce Willis there you go be an action movie exactly it would be an action
movie final question you now have the ability to talk to anybody throughout history who to be with and why
um I don’t know I think there are uh probably a bunch of people I would talk with uh mostly on mechanists so mostly
chemists I would pick probably the uh only uh chemistry Nobel Prize that Italy
ever won so julionata uh in the 60s he won the Nobel Prize for uh polypropylene
so I will definitely I’ll be happy to go back in time and um and talk with him
when I was in college I had these uh Professor he was the head of the
research of these uh big big chemical companies Chemical Company was called
montadison back in the days and they were involved in the uh you know in the process of the development of the
Catalyst to produce uh polypropylene so you know he will tell these stories
about you know how things were back in the 60s it was a big time for uh the
industry uh especially the chemical industry in Italy so I would definitely be more than happy to go back in time
and talk with them this professor I had which by the way he just passed away a few months ago but uh he published this
book which that is probably one of the last book I read uh you know I published this book about all the crazy stories
you know crazies in industrial stories and you know the the story of the chemical industry in Italy about those
years it’s very it’s very interesting you know of course for somebody who’s not from there it’s kind of hard to
learn about that but it’s a very interesting story Roberto I want to thank you for coming on scaling up H2O
we’ve never had your perspective on Legionella before so I know we’ve
answered a lot of questions and I’m sure we’ve created even more so get ready for some more questions probably going
straight to your email that will be good you know I’ll uh you know I’ll be there ready to answer the questions
Alberta once again thank you so much for coming on the scaling up H2O podcast of
course we are re-airing that episode because it was so popular we wanted to make sure that people found it very
easily and Alberto is actually coming back next year where we’re going to talk
a little bit more about his expertise and helping educate the scaling up
Nation so thanks again and as always if there is a topic that you want to hear
more on go to scalingup h2o.com and let us know all about that somebody who’s
always letting us know a little bit more about water treatment one drop at a time
here’s a brand new thinking on water with James
welcome to thinking on water with James the segment where we don’t give you the answers we give you the topics and
questions for you to think about drop by drop now let’s get to it
in this week’s episode we’re thinking about infrared thermometers or guns
why would you want to use an infrared thermometer on Industrial water systems what pieces of equipment should they be
used upon how far away are they accurate what does the distance to spot ratio tell you
about the size of area the infrared thermometer is measuring how does the design of the steam trap
impact where and what temperature you should see around a trap take this week to think about infrared
thermometers their strengths weaknesses and uses be sure to follow hashtag tow
22 and hashtag scalingup H2O share your thoughts on each week’s thinking on
water I’m James McDonald and I look forward to learning more from you James
as always thank you for all that you do for the Water Treatment Community and
James is going to be coming on a later episode this year to talk about how he
is wrapping up thinking on water with James and what we’re thinking about doing next year so you don’t want to
miss that and you definitely don’t want to miss another brand new episode next Friday where I will be bringing that
straight to you have a great week everybody [Music]
foreign Nation so many people that I talk to
want to join the rising tide Mastermind but they’re concerned about being able
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you when you experience that hour you realize that that is the Power Hour that
changes every other hour that you will experience that week if we keep doing
the same things we will keep doing the same results and that one hour a week allows you to get out of the day-to-day
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