(This podcast was originally conducted for MarketScale's Building Management Podcast.)

This episode of MarketScale's Building Management Podcast explores an interesting cause and effect within the industry. In the last several years, the push for more green water conservation initiatives has created an unexpected issue in home and building water supplies. With conservative toilet flushes, low-flow shower heads, and automatic sinks, water is left sitting in piping for longer periods of time, creating perfect environments for waterborne pathogens to thrive.

This issue has appeared almost parallel to another evolution in the Industrial Water Treatment Industry, one that’s putting a focus on public health instead of just asset management. In this episode of the Building Management podcast, we continue our discussion on pathogens that exist within our water supplies, and how they’re causing a ripple effect that changing the Commercial, Hospitatlity, Real Estate, and Tourism industries. Chem-Aqua’s Manager of Water Risk Management Services Group, Dominck Tuzzo explains how competing interests complicate solving the pathogen problem and the risk that now presents itself to building owners and facility managers.

“Man-made premise plumbing systems are the perfect breeding ground for these Opportunistic Premise Plumbing Pathogens, or OPPPs, to breed, colonize, and rapidly amplify in our building systems,” said Tuzzo. He also makes the argument that efficiency is not always the safest option for the consumer. Tuzzo elaborates on the Legionnaire’s outbreak in the 2010s, the rise in energy saving technology, and the shift in responsibility in the industry.