City councillors received a memo from staff Friday providing some information on how the municipality has been working with the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit (SMDHU) since news of a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak had been declared.
Local politicians also learned the city has had to spend, unexpectedly, about $30,000, as a result of that outbreak.
On Oct. 11, the SMDHU issued a news release stating that a cluster of Legionnaires’ cases were confirmed in individuals who reside in or had visited the city.
As a result of this cluster, the SMDHU contacted the city to assist with their investigation and to perform testing on the city’s water cooling towers/condensers.
The City of Orillia has cooling towers at the City Centre, Brian Orser Arena, Barnfield Point Recreation Centre, and Rotary Place.
As part of its investigation, the SMDHU inspected and tested all cooling towers at city-owned facilities, notes the memo to councillors.
City staff provided information regarding the maintenance and testing of water cooling towers and provided records to show that towers are regularly tested and protected from bacteria.
As part of the testing process, all city-owned towers were disinfected on Oct. 22 and 23.
The process takes 24 hours.
Test results for the City Centre on Andrew Street, Brian Orser Arena and Barnfield Point were all satisfactory.
However, the results for Rotary Place indicated higher than normal levels of Legionella bacteria. According to the memo from staff, Rotary Place is equipped with chemical feed equipment and is annually tested for Legionella bacteria.
An additional disinfection process occurred at Rotary Place on Oct. 25-26 and subsequent test results were satisfactory.
The source of the Legionnaire’s disease cluster in Orillia has not yet been identified, notes the staff memo.
As a result of this process, the SMDHU and the city’s contracted vendor recommended upgrades to the city’s cooling towers. The total cost of these updates is approximately $30,000 plus HST.
Staff have initiated the recommendations immediately, notes the memo.
“The costs will cause facility accounts to be over budget. Any budgetary issues will be managed as part of the city’s year-end accounting,” notes the memo.
Click here to find out more on the health unit's page about the outbreak. As of this morning, that page had not been updated since Oct. 17.
