Ms. McClure,
I am a student at the Ohio State College of Public Health in Columbus, Ohio, and the facilitator and organizer of the Ohio Legionella Prevention Initiative.
To date, I have sent out email letters to over 600 Ohio school superintendents regarding legionella prevention. In these emails I included information to be used as guidance by school districts to develop water safety programs. They received the just released CDC Tool Kit on legionella prevention, a copy of The Ohio State University Hospitals anti-legionella plan, a link to the New York State cooling tower inspection and registration law, and a copy of an actual water safety plan sent to me by an Ohio school system.
The next step on the agenda is to tackle the major causes of legionella growth leading to Legionnaires Disease – chief among these causes are hot water heating tanks. Besides causing a great waste of energy, hot water tanks promote legionella growth by having different temperature levels inside the tanks.
Tankless hot water systems are clearly the answer for energy conservation, and for bacteria growth. Tankless water heaters can be arranged in banks to handle the hot water needs of schools. Recirculating pumps, built into some models, guarantee that the water left in the connecting pipe systems is kept at the proper temperature. Tankless water heaters also last longer than hot water tanks and take up much less space.
As the Ohio School Facilities Commission is now merged into your organization, you are nowthe issuer of Qualified School Cosntruction Bonds that were designed to provide funding for necessary upgrades such as tankless water heaters.
Can you please put me in touch with this office? These bonds can also be used for new construction, and it would be very important from a public health persspective that tankless systems be designed into new school buildings.
Sincerely,
Michael Korzen
Student,
The Ohio State University
College of Public Health
Facilitator,
Ohio Legionella Prevention Initiative
email: korzen.1@osu.edu