The Legionnaire’s Disease outbreak that hit New York City earlier this summer is now having an impact here in Onondaga County. There’s not any disease showing up, but building owners that have cooling towers are now covered by new regulations. County Health Department Director of Environmental Health Lisa Letteney (LETT-nee) expects the new registry to be pretty widespread.
“There’s a lot of buildings, maybe thousands just in Onondaga County. There’s a lot of buildings that have all different sizes of cooling towers, whether it be a business, school, obviously the hospitals have them, large office buildings. So there are a lot of them out there.”
Building owners will have to register any cooling towers…and provide the state with a maintenance and testing plan. Letteney says if any bacteria are found, the building will have to have a licensed expert remediate. But she emphasizes, this doesn’t mean there’s any elevated risk of Legionnaire’s to the public.
“The public should not be additionally concerned about Legionnaire’s because of this. This is just an additional safeguard that’s being put out there since there has been some more legionella found in different areas. Most people it will not affect at all. It’s mostly going to affect just these business or building owners.”
New York State Department of Health Legionnaires’ Disease hotline: 1-888-769-7243.
The registry and testing rules come from the State Health Department. The Cuomo Administration promised statewide regulations after 12 people died and more than 100 were sickened by the bacteria. The deadline to register cooling towers, test them and report inspections is September 16th.
