The unprecedented number of building closures related to the coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) pandemic is concerning because water stagnation will occur in many buildings that do not have water management plans in place. Stagnant water can have chemical and microbiological contaminants that pose potential health risks to occupants. Health officials, building owners, utilities, and other entities are rapidly developing guidance to address this issue, but the scope, applicability, and details included in the guidance vary widely. To provide a primer of large building water system preventative and remedial strategies, peer‐reviewed, government, industry, and nonprofit literature relevant to water stagnation and decontamination practices for plumbing was synthesized. Preventative practices to help avoid the need for recommissioning (e.g., routine flushing) and specific actions, challenges, and limitations associated with recommissioning were identified and characterized. Considerations for worker and occupant safety were also indicated. The intended audience of this work includes organizations developing guidance.
Background: From June to November 2005, 18 cases of community-acquired Legionnaires' disease (LD) were reported in Rapid City South Dakota. We conducted epidemiologic and environmental investigations to identify the source of the outbreak.
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic prompted the closure and reopening of previously shutdown large buildings globally. Building water stagnation has been identified as a potentially serious chemical and microbiological health concern for occupants. Health officials, building owners, utilities, and other entities are rapidly developing guidance. A synthesis of peer-reviewed, government, industry, and nonprofit literature relevant to the implications of water stagnation in plumbing systems and decontamination practices for water quality and health was conducted. A primer of large building plumbing preventative and remedial strategies is provided to inform ongoing efforts to develop recommissioning guidance. Preventative practices to help avoid the need for recommissioning and specific actions, challenges, and limitations associated with recommissioning were identified and characterized. Considerations for worker and occupant safety were also indicated. The responsibility for building water safety was identified to be shared between the building owner, drinking water provider, and local and state public health authorities. [First uploaded April 7, 2020. Minor changes (funding, acknowledgments) made April 8, 2020.]
POU membrane filters may be a feasible prevention measure for healthcare facilities to limit exposure of sensitive individuals to RGM in potable water systems.
It is possible to identify two relatively independent and distinct perspectives on what is valuable in the visual landscape. On the one hand there is the procedure for assessing visual quality which is utilized in one form or another by the various American land management agencies. An alternative approach is represented by the scholarly study of landscape aesthetics, a perspective which has its roots in the early 1700's in English literature, and has continued and evolved into its modern form. Inherent in this aesthetic study is the belief that the aesthetic qualities of landscapes are related to the informational and functional needs of humans. There is considerable value in using this traditional approach as a basis for improving current visual asessment processes. In order for this to occur, however, it must be possible to translate the rich information provided by the traditional approach into a mapped informational form that is compatible with the current visual assessment and management techniques. The effort to develop such a translation has focused on aspects of landform and land cover that might indicate the presence of such conceptual visual properties of the landscape as coherence, legibility and mystery. lnitial steps to apply and test this translation have been taken, with promising results. The methodology used in these initial studies is relatively straightforward and widely applicable. Given the importance of the challenge and the encouragement of the preliminary results, it is hoped that others concerned with the fate of the landscape will be stimulated to apply these methods to their own landscape contexts.
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