A province-wide cooling tower registry and regulations to prevent and quickly respond to legionnaires' disease outbreaks have not been implemented by the New Brunswick government two years after a previous outbreak in Moncton.
New Brunswick has no rules around regular testing or maintenance of cooling towers.
Cooling towers in the Moncton region are being investigated as the potential source of a legionnaires' disease outbreak announced Friday. Six people have the illness, all requiring hospitalization. The exact source has not been determined.
Cooling towers use water evaporation to remove heat and release it into the atmosphere. If legionella bacteria is present in the water, it can be aerosolized and spread over several kilometres by the wind. Those who inhale water droplets with the bacteria may then contract the illness. It doesn't spread person-to-person.
After the 2019 outbreak in Moncton where 16 contracted the severe form of pneumonia, the regional medical officer of health said he'd support more rules for building owners to try to prevent future outbreaks.
"Some presence of the legionella bacteria will probably be inevitable, but there are ways in which its presence and its growth can be controlled to control that risk," Dr. Yves Leger said during a September 2019 news conference when asked if outbreaks are preventable.
"So I don't think anything is preventable 100 per cent of the time, but I think for the most part, to me, it seems like it's something that should be preventable, yes."
Leger at the time said Public Health would prepare a report looking at what went well, what could be improved and including a recommendation for a cooling tower registry and mechanism to ensure they're properly maintained. He said he hoped it would be complete within several months.
Last week, before the most recent outbreak was announced, a spokesperson said the 2019 report is still a draft awaiting translation.
Leger on Sunday told CBC that work started in June to collect information from local government agencies on buildings with cooling towers.
"It is quite a big, big amount of work to put in place a registry - to decide what kind of format will work in New Brunswick, getting all the partners on board, getting that into place and rolling it out," Leger said.
Leger on Sunday said the COVID-19 pandemic has stretched public health resources, meaning work on a registry has taken longer to get started.
"I don't think it will be something that will be useful to us this time around," Leger said. "But, it certainly seems like there'll be a process that will be put in place that hopefully will help us in the future, to have a registry in place."
CBC requested an interview with Leger and Health Minister Dorothy Shephard for this story, though no interviews were provided.
While Leger's comments suggested a single province-wide registry, a spokesperson for the health department indicated the province will leave it to individual municipalities to track cooling towers.
Bruce Macfarlane said in an email that Public Health has contacted communities to "seek their assistance in maintaining registries for their municipality."
"This process would use the existing building permit application process as the entry point," Macfarlane said. "A template was recently developed and shared with planning officials for their immediate use."
It wasn't clear who would track towers in areas outside municipal boundaries.
Moncton seeks registry
The statement did not address whether the province will implement maintenance and testing rules.
Without a registry, the province in 2019 and again this year turned to the city to help locate cooling towers. Moncton Mayor Dawn Arnold called for a registry and other requirements in fall 2019.
"We were very hopeful that this would take place," Arnold said in an interview Monday, saying other jurisdictions have implemented such rules.
Quebec implemented a registry after a deadly 2012 outbreak a coroner's report deemed preventable. The province had failed to act on previous recommendations for cooling tower rules.
A Vancouver a bylaw requires a permit for new and existing cooling towers and that they undergo annual cleaning. Starting in 2022, the bylaw will require a test for the legionella bacteria upon startup as well as monthly testing.
Arnold said she wasn't aware that the province appeared to be leaving it to municipalities to collect and store the information, though said it's possible city staff were aware.
"This could happen elsewhere," Arnold said of outbreaks. "I think it's really important that there is a centralized registry of some sort so the province can do their due diligence to inspect them and make sure they're up to proper protocols."
She said she'd like to see the 2019 report that's yet to be finalized to understand its findings and recommendations.
The previous Moncton outbreak was announced on Aug. 1, 2019 when seven people were sick and was declared over Sept. 10, 2019. Testing by a lab in Quebec confirmed high bacteria counts in cooling towers on Organigram's cannabis production facility.
Public Health said the location would be subject of regular monitoring. It's unclear how long that monitoring continued.
Organigram wouldn't answer a question about that this week. The company directed questions to Public Health, which didn't respond to a request for comment Monday.
Cooling tower registry recommended after 2019 legionnaires' outbreak not in place - CBC.ca
Read More
No comments:
Post a Comment