ASHRAE Guideline 12 is intended for use by owners of human-occupied buildings and those involved in the design, construction, installation, commissioning, management, operation, maintenance, and service of centralized building water systems and components.

Legionnaires' disease is a severe form of lung infection caused by exposure to bacteria known as Legionella. Found naturally in freshwater environments like lakes and streams, Legionella becomes a health hazard when it grows unabated in water that is not properly treated. While this can include shower heads, hot tubs, and hot water heaters, cooling towers are often found to be the source of outbreaks.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-registered BioSpray^® Tower kills 99.9 percent of Legionella pneumophila when it is properly applied to hard, non-porous surfaces like cooling towers.

A new Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study involving 196 cooling towers nationwide found that 84 percent contained Legionella DNA, indicating that the dangerous bacteria that causes a severe, even fatal type of pneumonia were present or had been at some point. This means the real question is not “whether there will be another outbreak” but only “where and when” it will occur. 

The European collaborative Poseidon project says it has developed a scanner that can detect Legionella bacteria in under one hour rather than the 10 days of cultivation and analysis normally required.