The following transcript is provided by YouTube, mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode click HERE.
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is proudly sponsored by the rising tide Mastermind the term Mastermind was
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welcome to the scaling up H2O podcast the podcast where we scale up on knowledge so we don’t scale up our
systems we are right smack dab in the middle of Legionella awareness month and
already so many people have logged on to our website to learn more about
Legionella if you are one of those people you know how much information the
fine staff here at scaling up H2O has put together to make it easy for you to
learn more about what you should know about Legionella and how to explain it
to your customers if you are wondering what I’m talking about that means you
have not gone to scalingup h2o.com forward slash Legionella once again that’s scalingup h2o.com forward slash
Legionella where the fine folks here at scaling up H2O have just put together so
much information to make it easy for you to start you your research so you can
start creating dialogue with your customers giving them better information so they can make better decisions and of
course the last couple of episodes that’s what we’ve been doing we’ve been talking about how do we become more in
the know about Legionella today is going to be no different but before we get there I do
want to talk about a couple of events that you might want to put on your calendar this first one is taking place
November 12th through 16th it is the International Water conference and it is
being held in San Antonio Texas Nation I am so pleased to tell you that the
International Water conference has asked Yours Truly to be this year’s keynote
speaker I am so humbled I am so excited
I can’t wait to meet meet members of the scaling up Nation there at the
International Water conference and meet new people that maybe didn’t even know about the scaling up H2O program but
it’s been so much fun working with the folks at the International Water conference I’m super honored and I want
to thank them for selecting me as this year’s keynote speaker and I cannot wait
to get on that stage and deliver my keynote speech just a couple months ago
I think I was telling you about developing a TED Talk well if you do
something and you finish it and you don’t have something else that you are stretching yourself to make sure you are
getting better and whatever you were trying to get better at than I’ve been
told you’re not doing it right just like a runner if a runner finishes up a race and they don’t have their second race
scheduled well a lot of times that’s how people stop running so that’s what I did
I was contacted by the staff at the International Water conference and they
asked if I would do this and I thought it was a tremendous opportunity so I
can’t wait to do that and I can’t wait to see all the people there on November
12th through 16th in San Antonio hopefully one of those people will be
you and by the way if you want to learn more about the International Water conference you know where to find that that’s going to scalinguph2o.com and our
events page will have all of that information so hopefully you can make arrangements to see me in person another
event you will find there is the water smart Innovations Conference October 3rd
through 5th in Las Vegas Nevada and that’s hosted by the American Waterworks
Association and then the next one is waterpro conference September 25th
through 27th in Aurora Colorado put on by the national Rural Water Association
this is a conference that is known as the industry event of the year so to
find out more about all of these scaling up h2o.com and go over to our events
page Nation this whole month is about Legionella about learning more about
what we need to know so we can better counsel our clients and with that I know
you are going to enjoy our next interview [Music]
my lab partner today is returning guest Dr Alberto comazi Alberto how are you
sir hi Trace um very good and thanks for having me again absolutely
um I don’t know if this information got back to you but you were one of the most
listened to episodes that we have had awesome that’s uh that’s great hopefully
these wine is going to be a good one as well we are hoping that the ratings double so anything less will be
considered a failure no pressure exactly we got to do some good sharing there we go if somebody did not listen to episode
212 uh and they’re wondering uh who’s this guy that’s getting all these
listens what do you want to tell them I’ve been working in water treatment for
quite a few years at this point uh especially water disinfection water hygiene so what I personally do we help
building in protecting you know actually the building occupants from waterborne pathogens infections and the way we do
that is with supplemental disinfectants so last time in the last episode 212 we
kind of talked about uh what a building can do or what I mean what a building
should do when they test positive for Legionella you know what are the options
um for a building whereas this time uh hopefully you know we’re gonna talk about more what are the options just in
terms of these in fact all the pros and cons about all these in fact needs well
I know a lot of people are confused about all the different options out there so this is going to be a great
episode however you and I just got back from an association of water Technology’s convention in Canada what
was your experience there like it was great it was great I mean I had a you know great show great CD apparently we
were very happy with the weather everybody who lived in Vancouver said that it gets very rainy around that time
of the year but we got really good weather for the entire convention and I actually got to realize my dream I flew
a plane you flew a plane yeah there were those seaplanes on the bay so we booked
a tour um I got to see on the front seat because the plane was small and I
actually got to Pilot the plane that every pile of the plane for you know five or ten minutes so that was great I mean I realized my dream so I can I’m in
peace right now that’s awesome so it’s a private pie license in your future
I can because I mean people cannot see me on camera right now but my eyes are pretty bad I have very thick glasses and
even move my glasses I can really see well so um it’s not gonna happen unfortunately in the next life maybe fair enough fair
enough apparently you have to see in order to be able to land apparently that’s what they say well let’s go
straight into what people have questions about so they have now received a
positive Legionella result and it’s now thrown them into the situation where
they have to do some sort of remediation now that being said before we jump right
into what to do just that small part right there if there’s a document that’s
pretty easy to figure out what to do if there’s not a document everybody’s pointing fingers or what do you think we
should do what do you think we should do so if we test for something what should
be in place before we even have that conversation well I think that uh of course even if
it’s a mandatory building should test for Legionella because that’s the only way to know if your water management
plan is working now what a measurement plans suggests buildings might suggest buildings to test for regional as a part
of your water management plan but um it’s all mandatory but I would say that that’s the you know the the only
possible way to determine if your plan is working and especially even before you implement a plan to test for
Legionella and possibly other waterborne pathogens and establish a Baseline and understand if you have the need to
implement some sort of disinfection now what if somebody has a customer and
they say we want you to run all these tests for Legionella but we do not have a plan I mean that’s that could be the
case um and that usually happens in buildings that are not uh healthcare related
Healthcare facilities must have a water management plan because of a document
that was published by the CMS in back in 2017 uh CMS stands for center for
Medicare Medicaid services where basically you know they were telling Healthcare facilities that they needed
to implement a water management plan um in order to be eligible to receive
funding and starting from I think January this year the Joint Commission started to audit Healthcare facilities
and make sure that the plan was being implemented you know I mean you can have a plan Web written but if the plan is
sitting on a shelf and the body is doing that is implementing that it’s you know you’re not complying with your plan in
other facilities such chairs hotels or apartment complexes you know all those
big buildings where they might be at risk for Legionella but they do not have
to have a plan you know it’s not mandatory for them to have a plan however
um I would say that especially right now um after the pandemic there is a much
greater awareness about pathogens in general and waterborne pathogens so it’s
good to see that a lot of buildings even not Healthcare are starting to be
proactive and test for Legion Airline Implement some sort of plan to make sure that you know the occupants of the
buildings are safe so it’s not you know it’s not impossible to run into a
building where they’re already performing testing even if they don’t really have a water management plan and they just do that to make sure that they
don’t have any kind of safety concern from a waterborne pathogen standpoint so before we get into disinfection
methods when should we even look at that is that when we get a single positive
result back or multiple positive results back the magic number let’s say in the
literature is 30 so if you’re testing positive for Legionella but your rate of
positivity is below 30 so less than 30 percent of your samples tested positive
for Legionella that’s considered control but of course you know we should aim for
numbers that are lower than that and you know there’s not a universal answer to
that question there are buildings yeah it really goes you know it really gets down to the management of the building
there are people that are super proactive and you know as soon as they have a positive they want to do
something right away Implement something right away there are other buildings that say you know well let’s run another
round of samples and then see what that looks like and maybe then we’ll Implement some sort of disinfection I
mean there are steps that can be implemented before a supplemental disinfection system is put into a
building what are some of those steps so for example um first of all it’s good
water management practices so temperature control make sure that the temperature in your buildings are balanced especially in the domestical
water system make sure that you know if temperatures are balances or balanced make sure you have good research rate in
the building and uh good water consumption so low water age so you know facility should Implement flushing and
then sometimes when they have a positive they even do some more aggressive flushing but then if it becomes chronic
then at that point in time they might think about installing a supplemental disinfection system in some part of the
facility and I think we talked about these uh last time as well facilities can also Implement point of use filters
so it’s basically a mechanical barrier the bacteria cannot flow through the filter so that will prevent exposure but
it’s not going to fix the problem in the fighting system so what facilities do
sometimes in response to an outbreak I mean you know sometimes our outbreaks so it there’s a big problem just to
implement something quick the facility will install filters everywhere on the short term while they’re working on
reducing the Legionella problem and sometimes facilities decide to keep filters on in those areas of the
buildings especially Healthcare facilities where highly you know compromised people are so you know bone
marrow transplant Cancer Centers ICU or in the EQ
sometimes they decide to implement filters and keep them there but usually they’re not a long-term solution and
it’s usually used in conjunction with supplemental disinfectant but again if a facilities experiencing chronic
Legionella issues so I’m not talking about uh you know the janitor closet the the faucets in their test positive but
nobody literally used that I’ve used that faucet for months and months
um you know that should not trigger the use of a supplemented disinfectant but if if you test in different part of the
building for multiple times and you have positives and your other control methods
so flashing didn’t have then yeah it might be good to think about implementing or supplement that is
infected well for purposes of this conversation let’s say there is a water management
plan written they did a good series of testing and it came back more than 30
percent positive so now we’ve got to do something what do we do
so on that at that point the facility should start to think about implementing
a supplemental disinfectant so if the facility if you know if the decision makers are not aware of the options that
are available in the marketplace they should ask an expert about what the
option could be for the building and evaluate the pros and the cons of the
disinfectant and the way that these infection is being applied you know there is a difference between
supplemental disinfectant which some people also call them secondaries infecting but the correct term is
supplemental disinfected in building and you know disinfectants in general that sometimes are used for a short course
remediation so shock treatment a lot of times facilities decide to implement that instead of implementing something
long-term um you know supplemented is in fact and it’s something that as they were say supplement what is necessary to help the
building Plumbing Systems in remain safe so it’s something that it’s turned on
and it’s technically it will always work in order to maintain the disinfectant
levels at a certain point in the building plumbing system a short treatment is something that facilities sometimes do and it’s basically
shock trading or another word that is used is hyperchlorinating the buildings
so feeding a lot of this in fact in a very high concentration above the legal limit for drinking water so you have to
go in water restriction and leave the disinfectant sit in the pipes for a
certain amount of time and then flash it out of course there are pros and cons for each of the Alternatives right you
know short course remediation something that you you know you do one time you think it’s going to work
um it’s definitely not going to cost as much as implementing a supplemental disinfection disinfectant because it’s a
one-time thing um you have to go on water restriction so that especially in healthcare facilities might not be really feasible
or you know you know hotels now you got to go in water restriction you have to tell people they can’t take shower plus
very high levels of chlorine you know legal limit for drinking water is for
PPM for chlorine monochloramine and 0.8 for chlorine dioxide when we talk about
shot feeding a building with chlorine or chlorine dioxide we’re going to levels that are way above that then you have to
flush it out and such a high levels of chlorine or chlorine dioxide could be uh
you know they could be they could damage the plumbing system that could be corrosive plus shock trading it’s known
as we have reported in the literature that um a shock treatment it’s not effective
over the long term you know let’s pretend that you implement your shock treatment perfectly like you are killing
a hundred percent of the bacteria that are in your plumbing system everywhere in every point in the plumbing system
you’re still going to be affected from what’s coming in from the city you know
that’s how waterborne pathogens come into a building you know they survive the disinfection steps that the city is
doing and then they come into a building and you know the building a building plumbing system it is the design is as
such that it’s a perfect environment for the growth of pathogens you know you have to think about a lot of small pipes
that will offer a lot of surface area for biofilm to grow and bacteria to grow so again even if
you kill all the microorganisms in your plumbing system you’re still gonna have if the source is colonized you’re still
gonna have bacteria coming in and they’re likely going to come in because statistically 50 of the buildings in the
United States are colonized by Legion and sometimes higher than that based on the era so you know that’s the cause of
the shock treatment now for supplement that is in fact think system the you know you’re always going to be protected
because you’re feeding something constantly but it requires a little bit more work you know it’s a system that needs to be installed so you will likely
have to do plumbing modification which sometimes are minimal you know it’s a one-time thing but then you know
somebody the water Trader will have to take care of the supplement that is affecting system
well let’s take each one of those and expand them just slightly so if we were
to do a shock disinfection what would our options be and why would we choose
one over another usually the disinfectants that are used for a shock treatment are fast oxidants
you know you need something that is capable of killing microorganism very fast so it’s a very strong oxidant so
usually chlorine or chlorine dioxide are being implemented as you know shock uh
treatment options chlorine we’re basically talking about bleach so it’s as easy as hukinape dosing Palms to the
backflow preventer of the building and just hyperchlorinate the whole building for chlorine dioxide there are different
Technologies available in the marketplace to either produce chlorine dioxide on site so that would be
something that you would use as a supplemental disinfectant system so a chlorine dioxide generator but for a
shock treatment there are chlorine dioxide solutions that you know very highly concentrated solution that can be
used for you know sharks reading a building with with chlorine dioxide
would you ever use monochloramine as a shock there are few
um available documents in the literature documenting the use of monochloramine for short treatment it’s usually not
being used for two main reasons uh because it’s a it’s slower than chlorine
and chlorine dioxide it’s more it’s more stable which is actually the beauty of the molecule and there are no
monochloramine Solutions available in the marketplace so you will literally have to install a generator that you
would use for supplement of this infection purposes just to do a shocklerination what buildings do
sometimes they install us monochloramine system for supplemental disinfection
because that’s what they want to do but at the beginning of the program they decide to shock trade the building with
monochloramine because they already have the generator on site and another option is uh copper silver
when would you use that no copper silver is not being used for sure chords
remediation is now being used as a sharp disinfectant it’s only being used it’s almost like monochloramine it’s only
being used as supplemental disinfectant copper silver is you know almost the same as monochloramine you would need a
system in the building to produce copper silver so it’s usually not being used as
a as a shock treatment chemical and the last item that would be
available to us is is just heat uh so my question to you is do people just heat
or just use one of the options we talked about or a lot of times do they use two
things at once like heat and hyperchlorination you wouldn’t do that together because
the higher the temperature the faster the chlorine will decay in the water but
yes uh you’re 100 correct and I forgot to mention that um heat or superheating
is another way is another short course remediation for regional a treatment so in the concept there is
heating the temperature to a point where you know the bacteria will start to die
there there is a lot of data in the literature showing that um they say that 140 Fahrenheit is the
magic temperature kilogen Ella but in a plumbing system is not like being in a
lab it’s much harder to kill Legionella in a plumbing system with just heat
because first of all you need to ensure that you are carrying the high temperature everywhere in the plumbing
system as well as you would have to flush all the faucets and carry that temperature to all the fixtures and you
know showers Faucets in the facility and again the cons of short course treatment
is that it’s widely reported that are not effective over the long term because
it’s almost pretty much impossible to kill all the bacteria that you have in
the in your plumbing system just a few hours plus you’re still gonna be subjected to what it’s coming in from
the city unfortunately a lot of times buildings want to do that because they
see that as an easy way out right it’s a it’s a one-time thing I’m gonna do it
overnight yes I have to go on water restriction but it’s not going to be a big deal you know I have to go and water restriction for six hours I’ll do it
from 10 p.m at night until 4 o’clock in the morning a lot of Manpower but again one
time who cares but so a lot of times facility want to do that because they
think it’s you know it’s easier and it’s going to be effective but as a matter of fact it usually comes back more often
than what people will think let’s put it that way Alberta earlier you had mentioned that
people will use heat in just their general maintenance to try to keep their
Legionella positives down in doing so you just disclosed that we have to keep
it at least 140 degrees well that’s pretty hot so if somebody turns on the
hot water they might be getting a lawsuit because they’re now burned how are people dealing with that
yes correct you know it that’s why I was saying that you would have to go in on water restriction because you can
deliver water that is too hot to the room so nobody can use water or scalding issues and it’s a waste of energy as
well because 140 is the what it’s reported in the literature but as a matter of fact you would have to
actually heat the water at temperatures that are higher than 140 140 is when it
stops to grow so you will probably have to go up to 150 160 you can’t deliver
that water to the to the fixtures because it’s too hot so you would have to go on you know water restriction
people could not use the water the same as a shock chlorination people could not use the water
um as you’re doing the treatment just want to be clear because as you mentioned a lot of buildings think that
that’s a easy free issue everything’s already installed just crank up the heat so I wanted to make sure everybody was
thinking about that full course of action not just what was easy but actually what’s going to happen if you
do that well let’s let’s shift gears now and say that the shock disinfection work
well actually before we do that how would we know the shock disinfection worked uh well you would have to test
after the shock treatment is being performed you know and a lot of times people test right after so right after
it might look like that word but then you test few weeks later and you’re back your problem is back so you know testing
is the only way to validate that whatever
remediation you are implementing is working so we did a test maybe we did a
subsequent test and everything looks good so we feel like we got everything
for now of course it’s going to come back because it’s coming in through the the makeup water but the shock
disinfection was successful on this application and now a facility says you
know we really don’t want to have that risk as we did before so we want to add
a continuous disinfection to our building
what does the water treatment professional need to know to guide that conversation and what does that process
look like what you know if the facility wants to implement a supplemental disinfectant
they need to look at the options that are available in the marketplace and you know options are chlorine chlorine
dioxide and monochloramine that are water disinfectant so those are water
disinfectant listed by the EPA under the same Drinking Water Act and then of
course you mentioned copper silver as well which are technically not disinfectants but they are being used as
you know supplemental disinfectants or you know Legionella remediation Technologies so the first thing the
water Trader should do is you know go in a building and see where to apply the
supplement of disinfectant so the million dollar question is do I treat
the entire cold water going into the building or do I treat just the hot water system it depends who you ask for
right you know there’s not a universal answer to to that question there you know you can
um see that from different point of views first of all Legionella does not clone it comes in from the cold water
but doesn’t really colonize in cold water Regional is a thermal tolerant pathogens he grows in warm water and
that’s why it’s harmful for human beings because it grows in our lungs that’s a perfect temperature for for the bacteria
so sometimes treating the entire cold water in a building is unnecessary because that’s not where the problem is
especially the cold water in a building in healthcare facilities it’s usually 90
percent of the entire water is cold water only whereas the hot water in the
building is usually 10 to 15 percent so treating the entire cold water you’ll be
looking at you know much more chemicals much bigger equipment to literally dump
your disinfectant in the toilet when people flush the toilets or you know your cooling towers where they already
have a biaside program but you know it depends where you are in the country sometimes
cold water is not really cold you know you’re down in the South during summer down in Florida and Texas Southern
California even if we’re talking about cold water it could be warm enough to
you know present the threat for Legionella growth or the healthcare
facility that you’re working with or the building that you’re working with might be concerned about different pathogens
that actually colonize batter and cold water so in that specific case it would
make more sense to treat the cold rather than the hot but for Legionella purposes it’s better to treat the hot water
system now as water Traders it’s easier let’s say to understand that but when
you talk with building engineers and building managers which don’t really you know deal with water on a daily basis
they see as well if they’re going to treat the cold water we’re going to treat the entire water in the facility
which will be cold and hot so it’s better but it’s not you know it’s not not like that when you are implementing
a supplemented disinfection for regional remediation what really matters at the end of the day is to establish a
consistent disinfectant residual in the domestical water system because you’re
gonna treat all the fixtures as well as long as you’re flushing hot water through the fixtures but if you were to
feed the disinfectant on cold water only that doesn’t mean that you’re going to
have a good residual in the domestic hot water system because it depends on the domestic hot water turnover time where
the domestic hot water system is physically is in the building compared to the point of entry you know if it’s
far away that water with the disinfectant has to travel all the way to the domestic power system
flow into the domestical water heaters the heat exchange in that you know the
shifting temperature will be detrimental to the disinfectant stability so you might end up using a lot more chemicals
to treat the entire water and then end up with little to no disinfect and in the domestic hot water system which is
where your target is so once they determine what they’re
going to treat and they’re going to consider if they’re going to use chlorination monochloramine where do
they go now do they do they reach out to a vendor a trusted advisor what
information do they need so they can guide the customer through the process so they can get the right equipment
showing up they can get that equipment installed and actually do what they’re hoping it will do
well of course you need to understand the um the building size and size the correct type of system that you want to
put in of course if you ask two different vendors they’re all going to tell you that their system is the best
you know in the marketplace that’s that’s kind of normal but the good thing
is that there is a lot of data published by the APA there is a document by the
APA published in 2016. it’s a whole technology review for Legionnaire remediation you can download it for free
on the APA website there are a lot of scientific papers published by the EPA and other researchers you know
universities or Labs assessing the efficacy of
um supplemental disinfectants in building water system so you know it’s it’s good to start from that gather some
data and understand um what the pros and the cons of or of all the options are you know I can go
through that you know real quick you know sometimes people want to store chlorine because it’s easier you know
it’s cheaper it’s easier you literally need a bucket with bleach into it you
just connect your chlorine dosing pump to your domestic hot water return and
you just feed off of the orp so a very easy system very easy to implement quick to install doesn’t require measure
Plumbing modification but it is known that chlorine it’s not really effective
against Legionella now if we’re talking about shock chlorine nation very high concentration of chlorine
um if you look at the CT values it might look like the chlorine is a good alternative but again we’re not in a lab when I’m trying
to kill legionell in a beaker I’m in a plumbing system and there are a lot of
different variables that are Beyond anybody’s control you know it’s water age in the building water recirculation
water temperature dead legs presence of oxygen demand in the system so you know
corrosive issues so the problem with very highly oxidant biocides is is that
they are highly oxidized um you know that’s kind it sounds strange but that’s the Achilles heel
um because they are so oxygen they will literally react with Organics that are
in the water or they will Decay faster over time so they could be great in
killing Legionella but the problem with um you know uh strong oxidant such as
chlorine and chlorine dioxide as well is that it’s very it’s extremely hard to
establish a consistent residual everywhere in the plumbing system so yes you do have a molecule that is very
effective but you are not going to be able to achieve the exposure that you
need between the molecule and the microorganism right maybe it’s in 100 years there’s going to be the perfect
disinfectant that it’s not corrosive it’s perfect kills Legionella in 0.2
seconds every time no issues whatsoever but if the actual microorganism is not in
contact with the molecule nothing is going to happen so that’s the problem with oxygen molecules they could be
great but it’s very hard to disperse them everywhere in the plumbing system
just because they Decay as fast to give you a practical example you know you
know in one story in a bathroom you test for chlorine dioxide you might get a good residual and then you move up to
floors and you got none you know so that’s very typical for chlorine dioxide applications
if someone is running continuous disinfection should they be running a
different interval of testing does the frequency of testing and the interval of testing change if they’re running
continuous disinfection yes good question of course you know all the testing that we’ve been talking
about up to now was Legionella testing right let’s make sure that your plan is working so I want to test for regional
now we need to think about testing for the actual disinfectant in the water and
validate that I have this infection in the water right I have my system started up and running looks like the system is
running fine no alarms no nothing but then I have to validate that my system is putting out the disinfectant at the
levels that I want and the way to do that is to test for the disinfectant now the good thing is that there are on-site
tests uh we tested that the facility people can run you know different part of the building and they can make sure
that the disinfectant is there now I personally like to test every day because usually those tests are very
easy to do are very quick to do so they’re not a burden for the facility
but then you have to you know be realistic and a lot of time facility people are are not willing to test as
often as a water treatable like but I would say that probably like a couple of times a week that that is a good media
to make sure that your disinfectant is in the water at the level that you want unless you are in one state where you
need to apply for a permit to feed a supplemental disinfectant with the
authority having jurisdiction in that specific state so in that case the state will say how many times you have to test
and then you have to report the data back to the state so you have to test at Whatever frequency they tell you to test
now how would you know if you resided in one of those States what you technically would have to
research that and the way you do that is to figure out who is the authority
having jurisdiction uh for drinking water in that state so that’s step one um so it could be the APA it could be
the Doh the BP and then ask them if a permit is needed for the application of
a supplemental disinfectant on drinking water on cold water and sometimes when you work with water treaters and with
product manufacturer they usually they usually know that you know if they have
business in that state already they usually know if a permit is required and if it is what is the process to do so
the cons to that is that there’s no uniformity among the states right like
um I’m off in Pennsylvania I’m Pennsylvania you need to apply for a permit in New Jersey you don’t you know
so you’ve literally drive across the bridge and you’re good you don’t have to apply for a permit but if you’re on the
Pennsylvania side you have do some states required to be a licensed operator as well
yes so usually when a permit is issued by the state do you need a licensed
operator to oversee the supplement of this infection application in the building I mean there are some issues
related to the permit process in my opinion you know I think you should
start to look at what is the goal of the permit uh the permit has a purpose right is protect the public health it’s making
sure that an application is made the way it’s supposed to so it doesn’t pose any threat to the people that are in the
building right otherwise everybody could just buy bleach and feed bleach in a building you know without any sort of
control then we’re done right we don’t want that to happen the problem though with the permit is you know starting
from if somebody doesn’t know how to apply sometimes it could be a process that takes some time and some resources
especially you know Financial Resources so it’s figure the first step is figure out who do I have to ask uh how do I
apply for the permit and sometimes in some states The Regulators make the
permit process so hard for whatever reasons that I’m
still trying to figure out that you know that is going to be detrimental to Public Health because you have a
facility that has a Legionella problem they’re trying to do the right thing they’re trying to feed a disinfectant
but the process to do that is so hard you know it’s so difficult that at some
point the facility keeps up uh they say you know it’s too much for us and you mentioned the licensed operator
sometimes the facility doesn’t have a licensed operator on staff a lot of water treatment firms do but a lot a lot
of them don’t so the facilities sometimes need to hire an external person as a licensed operator now there
is a lot of discussion right now going on with Azure and awwa which I’m part of
a committee in aww about finding and creating a certification for
building licensed operators like in in a perfect world The cwt certification
would be um equal to that certification right because when you mentioned when you
mentioned a licensed operator we’re talking about a Municipal Water Treatment Plant license operator so it’s
a person that is doing the job at the municipal level but that person usually you know Works in a municipality and
they don’t really understand the water chemistry in a building you know building is a completely different
ecosystem than a water treatment utility and a municipal distribution system you
know in a building we have first of all water heater domestical water system booster pumps racer pumps cooling towers
boilers Chillers um you know we have all these components that licensed operators don’t really
know so with all of these different things that we can do we’re now testing for it
maybe we have a permit maybe we have to have some sort of license we’ve done all of these things and we’re doing all of
these things to keep people safer we don’t want people to get sick and we don’t want the liability so my question
to you is is one method better than another when it comes to what the courts
see as due diligence I don’t think the court will actually look at the method that is being
implemented but they’re probably going to look at the test results uh after a
specific matter was implemented so the key is to implement the method that is
the most efficient in reducing your risk of having legionna in the water right
and we kind of went through the pros and cons of chlorine and chlorine dioxide now we can talk a little bit more about
copper silver and monochloramine copper silver has been used for longer time than monochloramine in building it could
work over the um short term but it is proven in the literature that copper silver kind of
loses efficacy over the long term just because the mechanism of action with the bacteria is different you know
monochloramine more stable than chlorine and chlorine dioxide but still in oxidants so they actually oxidize the
microorganism completely or some protein that are responsible for metabolic
process of the micro you know of the microorganism so the microorganism cannot sustain life anymore and will die
right um whereas copper and silver are metallic ions
um that will poison the microorganism so they would do the same that heavy metal
would do to a human being you know we poison the microorganism so it’s reported that the microorganism could
develop resistance over the long term to those ions I mean there are studies
where good control was achieved at the beginning of the treatment and then after a few years you know Legionella
came back even if the levels of copper Silvers were good uh in the plumbing system monochloramine has been used in
the United States as a supplementary infection system against Legionella has been used for a little bit longer in
Europe in buildings as of now there is no data of reporting that Legionella
comes back after certain time with the use of monochloramine and the beauty of monochloramine as I mentioned before
it’s stability because it’s more stable it’s going to be easier to establish the
residual everywhere in the plumbing system by feeding it to your water so that’s why it usually works better than
chlorine and chlorine dioxide and copper silver if you could only get one point across
today what do you want that point to be that you know there’s no Silver Bullet when it comes to water disinfection and
there is no an easy magic way to fix the problem in the plumbing system as well
as it’s usually a different people approach right so you are installing a
supplemented disinfection system in a building a lot of people think that okay I’m gonna switch my brain off and I
don’t have to any I don’t have to do anything more related to my water system because I have my supplemental
disinfection system installed first of all he’s drinking water so this that system needs to be maintained but
then flashing is still crucial from the building in order to get the disinfectant everywhere in the plumbing
system so installing a supplemented disinfectant system doesn’t automatically give you 100 success rate
for Legionella you know and then you don’t have to think about anything else it’s you know there there are there is
homework there are homeworks to do when a supplemented disinfection system is is installed you know not heavy load of
homeworks but there are almost to do well we appreciate all this information
I have no doubts this is going to be uh another show that people are going to get a lot of information and probably
listen to multiple times so uh thank you for sharing all your knowledge all your
experience but before I say goodbye how about a new round of lightning round questions Let’s Do It Let’s Do It All
right so here we go question number one what would you say your superpower is
my superpower is what you know a lot of people that deal with water hygiene
should have has a superpower is you know being able to speak different languages
and with different languages I’m not talking about Italian and American I’m talking about you know sometimes you have to talk with different people in in
a building you know you have to talk with the facility director or the infection preventionist or the water
treater so you have to be able to deliver information in a way that people
will understand you know so you have to you have to have the good water treatment slash chemistry balance based
on who you’re talking with so I think I’m you know that’s probably one of my superpower my superpowers
what would you say over your career your biggest accomplishment has been
I guess accomplishment I don’t think there’s one in particular you know I get very happy when you know there is a
building that is in need of help for protecting people and sometimes if you
if you look at that from the building standpoint it is extremely stressful uh
these people in the building they literally freak out when they have a problem and sometimes they feel that
they can you know they can’t fix the problem you know they try different things and it doesn’t work and it keeps
coming back he gets extremely frustrating I don’t really know how those people sleep at night sometimes so
it is very good and I consider that you know good accomplishment when you’re going to building you up them out it’s
working and you can you can literally see that you know they are you know they are in peace at that point they trust
you they’re happy so I think you know that’s a good achievement from you know from a career standpoint you know it
feels really good when you know you’re helping people and and you know there’s always the joke like right we’re saving
lives right we don’t know who we’re saving but we’re saving lives because we’re keeping people safe in buildings
so that’s you know that’s a good way to think about that it’s a it’s a good goal it’s a good achievement
last question you now have a magic wand you can change anything you want in the
world what would you change my bank account no I’m just kidding um I don’t know uh that’s a good
question you know if we fix all the water problems with a magic wand uh we’re gonna end up losing our jobs so I
don’t know if I would use my magic wand to do that but you know I definitely I
will use my you know in terms of water I would definitely use my magic wand to
help people where getting we’re filling a bucket of five gallons of water is
difficult so definitely helping that and delivering water it was actually a very good presentation at the awt the last
day about um you know where will you be where the water crisis in the world will be over uh you know that was a really great
presentation so definitely you know in the world of water that what I would do in the world of sport I would have the
Phillies winning the World Series and the Eagles winning the Super Bowl this year so we got two parades in Philadelphia uh and you were actually uh
referencing Reed hutchison’s presentation nation that he did on world vision’s global 6K and then also pure
water for the world we did an episode on that I’ll have to look it up to see what episode that was but a great answer and
thank you again for sharing all the information that you have with uh all your first hand experience thank you for
being a guest once again yeah thanks for having me and uh you know I look forward to seeing everybody in Grand Rapids next
year the next AWG convention Nation I have heard rumors that Alberto
is one of the best cooks now I have no first hand experience with this hint
Alberto however if maybe the opportunity arises I don’t know maybe you’ve got a
kitchen at your awt booth that’s coming up in just a few short weeks I don’t
know I’d love to sample and see if I can either confirm or disprove I’m sure I
wouldn’t disprove I just want to eat your food so who knows maybe he’ll be cooking up something at the booth at the
association of water Technologies conference coming up in Grand Rapids Nation speaking of cooking up James
McDonald is always cooking up something new for all of us each and every week so
we can have fun as we are learning more about industrial water treatment so here
is a brand new installment of periodic water table with James hello and welcome to the periodic water
table with James where we think and learn about water chemistry drop by drop please use your week to search online
ask your colleagues or even pick up a book to learn more about each week’s
periodic water table topic if you do at the end of the year you’ll be 52 water
chemistry smarter so let’s raise the water table of knowledge together and get started
today’s topic is ammonia ammonia comes into play in
several different ways with an industrial water treatment what are some sources of ammonia that may be coming in
with the makeup water how is ammonia used in refrigeration
could this ammonia contaminate the water side how is ammonia sometimes used in boilers
are there some industries that prohibit such use of ammonia in boilers how does ammonia react with chlorine
why is this a reaction important and what does it have to do with break point chlorination
how do you remove ammonia from water how does pH affect the removal of
ammonia how does the impact of pH on ammonia removal compare to the impact of pH on
carbon dioxide removal which metal orgies may be less compatible with ammonia
remember knowledge is power and taking the time to learn more about water chemistry each week will help make you a
force to be reckoned with be sure to post what you learn to social media and tag it with hashtag
watertable23 and hashtag scalingup H2O I look forward to learning more from you
Nation do you have an idea for a podcast so many people helped us start out
Legionella awareness month this month with a question and we of course had
about a dozen questions that we took from the scaling up H2O mailbag I don’t know if we would have had a show without
those questions so help me keep this show on the air let me know what you
want me to talk about you can go to scalinguph2o.com and you’ve got a couple of ways you can send that information to
us one there is a record voicemail button right there on the home page you can record your own voice asking
whatever your question or giving us somebody you want to interview or whatever the show idea is or if you want
to type that out you can go over to the show ideas page and you can let us know whatever it is that you want us to have
a show about we are always looking for new ideas and Nation I hope you’ve used
these last three episodes to help you understand a little bit more about
Legionella there’s a lot of information out there about Legionella and people
are looking to us our customers are looking to us to sort through that sea
of information and give them finite knowledge of what
they need to know so they can make better decisions and that is the whole point every year when we do Legionella
awareness month I am sure we did not fall short of that this year now it’s
your turn I hope you take this information and you start to learn even
more you start creating dialogues with your customers and you Empower them to
do something so people do not have to suffer Legionnaires disease have those
conversations counsel your customer members make sure that they are moving
in a positive direction and one more time I will mention it something to help
you get started with all of that is going to scaling up h2o.com forward slash legioneller where we have all of
that information on our web page for you Nation thanks for being a member of this
scaling up Nation I will be with you next week for a brand new episode of
scaling up H2O next Friday have a great week folks
thank you Skyline Nation you asked for it and it
is here so many of you are taking the certified water technologist examination
and you’re wanting to get better information on how to better answer the
mock exam now this is the exam that you get when you sign up for the cwt exam
well I have heard your request and I’ve done exactly that I have recorded a
class that has exactly what you’ve been asking for it is me answering each one
of the questions and letting you know why I chose certain answers and of
course everybody wants me to do math and I do all the math on the mock exam so
you can see how to get the right answer and I hope this is something that will help
confidence so you can get your certification you can go to
scalinguph2o.com forward slash cwt prep once again that’s scalingup h2o.com
forward slash cwt prep get out there and get your certification today
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