{"id":955,"date":"2018-06-14T01:20:28","date_gmt":"2018-06-14T01:20:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/distribution-system-operational-deficiencies-coincide-with-reported-legionnaires-disease-clusters-in-flint-michigan\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T20:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T03:22:10","slug":"distribution-system-operational-deficiencies-coincide-with-reported-legionnaires-disease-clusters-in-flint-michigan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/distribution-system-operational-deficiencies-coincide-with-reported-legionnaires-disease-clusters-in-flint-michigan\/","title":{"rendered":"Distribution System Operational Deficiencies Coincide with Reported Legionnaires\u2019 Disease Clusters in Flint, Michigan"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Flint water<\/a>-and-distribution-system-in-an-unchlorinated-drinking-water-system-by-sourcetracker-using-microbial-community-fingerprints\/”>drinking<\/a>-water-migrating-from-plastic-pipe-distribution-system-pose-adverse-effects-to-human-an-analysis-of-scientific-literature\/”>water<\/a> crisis, sadly, gave us a real-world lesson in how managing water systems affects Legionella risk. A study in Environmental Health showed that Legionnaires’ disease outbreaks in Flint happened at the same time and in the same places as problems with their water distribution system. Technologies like reverse osmosis offer real solutions for these kinds of water quality issues. At AMPAC USA, we build commercial and industrial systems specifically for these needs, and we have the certified performance data to prove it.<\/p>\n

\\\\nRhoads, William J.; Garner, Emily; Ji, Pan; Zhu, Ni; Parks, Jeffrey; Schwake, David Otto; Pruden, Amy; Edwards, Marc A.<\/span><\/span>\\\\n\\\\nENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY, 51 (20):11986-11995;\u00a0<\/span><\/span>10.1021\/acs.es<\/span><\/span><\/span>t.<\/span><\/span><\/span>7b01589<\/span><\/span><\/span>OCT 17 2017<\/span><\/span>\\\\n\\\\nAbstract:\u00a0We think the rise in reported Legionnaires’ disease cases in Genesee County, Michigan, from June 2014 to November 2015, which includes Flint, directly links to when they switched to corrosive Flint River water. This happened between April 2014 and October 2015, moving away from noncorrosive Detroit water. Since we didn’t have much data connecting the water supply to disease, we collected water quality info, both physical-chemical and biological, from 2010 to 2016. This helped us see what in the Flint River water might have caused Legionella to grow. The treated Flint River water was 8.6 times more corrosive than Detroit water in short tests. It released more iron, which Legionella loves, and also made disinfectants break down faster. The Flint River water was also warmer, 0.8\u20136.7 \u00b0C hotter in summer months than Detroit water. It hit that 20 \u00b0C mark, the minimum for Legionella growth, much more often. Detroit averaged 63 days a year above 20 \u00b0C; Flint River hit 157 days. The corrosive water also caused more water main breaks, 1.3\u20132.2 times more in 2014\u20132015 compared to 2010\u20132013. We’ve seen these kinds of disruptions lead to outbreaks elsewhere. Importantly, after they switched back to Detroit water, Legionella spp. and Legionella pneumophila numbers dropped. We saw this in both gene markers and culturability when comparing August and October 2015 to November 2016.\\\\n\\\\nhttps:\/\/pubs.acs.org\/doi\/10.1021\/acs.est.7b01589\\\\n\\\\nThe post Distribution System Operational Deficiencies Coincide with Reported Legionnaires\u2019 Disease Clusters in Flint, Michigan appeared first on Facts About Water.\\\\n\\\\nSource: Water Feed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We hypothesize that the increase in reported Legionnaires\u2019 disease from June 2014 to November 2015 in Genesee County, MI<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":87965,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,29],"tags":[22],"class_list":["post-955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-water-filter","category-water-treatment","tag-ro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=955"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88165,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955\/revisions\/88165"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}