Legionella & Cooling-Tower Risk

Warm, aerosol-generating wet cooling towers can harbor Legionella; dry, closed cooling removes the warm-water aerosol pathway entirely.

Why wet towers pose a risk

Legionella bacteria thrive in warm, stagnant water and spread through inhaled aerosols. A wet cooling tower produces exactly those conditions: warm circulating water and a fine mist carried out in the airflow. Outbreaks have been traced to poorly maintained industrial and building cooling towers.

Managing the risk in wet systems

• Biocide dosing and regular disinfection
• Drift eliminators to limit aerosol release
• Routine monitoring and maintenance regimes
• Design to avoid stagnant zones

These controls reduce but do not eliminate the hazard, and they add an ongoing safety and maintenance burden, especially for towers sited near populated areas or, relevantly, near a data-center campus with staff.

Why the burner's cooling is inherently safer here

MetroVolt rejects heat through closed loops to dry air heat exchangers. There is no open warm-water basin and no evaporative mist, so the Legionella aerosol pathway does not exist. The public-health risk associated with wet cooling towers is designed out, not merely managed down.

In context

This is a secondary benefit of the water story, but a meaningful one for urban and campus siting. Removing evaporative cooling removes not only water consumption and waste streams but also the airborne-pathogen risk that comes with warm open water.