Category: Institutional Water Treatment

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Celebrate Pollution Prevention (P2) Week, Sept. 15-21, 2025

2025 P2 Week Poster, designed by Diana Henne. Available for purchase at https://fineartamerica.com/featured/2025-pollution-prevention-week-pollution-prevention-roundtable.html.

The third week of September annually is celebrated as Pollution Prevention, or P2, Week. P2 Week 2025 is September 15-21 using the theme: “40 Years of Pollution Prevention: Honoring the Past, Protecting the Future!”

As defined by the National Pollution Prevention Roundtable (NPPR, emphasis added), “Pollution is the contamination of air, soil, or water by the discharge of harmful substances. Pollution prevention is the reduction or elimination of pollution at the source (source reduction) instead of at the end-of-the-pipe or stack. Pollution prevention occurs when raw materials, water, energy and other resources are utilized more efficiently, when less harmful substances are substituted for hazardous ones, and when toxic substances are eliminated from the production process. By reducing the use and production of hazardous substances, and by operating more efficiently we protect human health, strengthen our economic well-being, and preserve the environment.”

Rather than being a burden on industry, NPPR points out that “Adopting pollution prevention practices and techniques often benefits industry by lowering a company’s operational and environmental compliance costs. By preventing the generation of waste, P2 can also reduce or eliminate long-term liabilities and clean-up costs. Furthermore, disposal costs are reduced when the volume of waste is decreased. This can also lead to a reduction in workplace exposures to hazardous materials which can affect workers’ health and hence, their productivity. If less waste is produced, there will also be a diminished need for on-site storage space. Furthermore, by preventing pollution there will be a greater likelihood that a company will be in compliance with local, state, and federal compliance statutes. Finally, as community pillars, businesses shoulder an important responsibility for protecting the environment and natural resources for their own good as well as that of society.”

In 1990, Congress passed the Pollution Prevention Act (P2Act), which states “The Environmental Protection Agency must establish a source reduction program which collects and disseminates information, provides financial assistance to States, and implements the other activities….”

The technical assistance experts within ISTC’s Center for Economic Impacts and Societal Benefits (CEISB) help businesses, organizations, institutions, and government agencies throughout Illinois and beyond prevent pollution and use resources more efficiently. This benefits our shared environment while also ensuring that companies and communities are more competitive and resilient.

CEISB technical assistance providers currently have federal funding to provide P2 assistance at no cost to certain industrial or market sectors. See the following brief descriptions and links to project flyers:

  • Advancing Beverage Resilience through Pollution Prevention. This collaboration with EnergySense Resilience Center supports breweries, wineries, distilleries, and other craft beverage businesses across the state of Illinois. Following their assessments, participants will also have the chance to assist in shaping the certification process for green beverage manufacturing in Illinois and to be recognized for their sustainability efforts through the Illinois Green Business Program.
  • Mississippi River Corridor Pollution Prevention. ISTC staff are working with partners at the Iowa Department of Natural Resources Office of Pollution Prevention Services and Missouri State University to provide free industrial sustainability assessments across three states.
  • Pollution Prevention at Food Focused Businesses within DuPage & Kane Counties. Another collaboration with EnergySense Resilience Center, this project is providing free technical assistance to 10 small for and/or non-profit entities, such as restaurants, grocers, and other food-focused businesses and organizations in DuPage and Kane Counties. By getting assessed, businesses can lower operational costs, reduce wasted food & resources, and attract environmentally conscious customers.

Don’t see your sector or organization reflected in the projects listed above? Our team may still be able to assist you through other funding sources or fee-for-service work. Contact us at istc-info@illinois.edu or fill out our online site visit request form.

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Institutional Water Treatment program service helps combat the spread of Legionnaires’ disease

Flyer for IWT Legionella testing service.

Part of the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center’s Technical Assistance Program (TAP), the Institutional Water Treatment program, or IWT, provides unbiased, professional water treatment advice to facilities equipped with institutional water systems such as cooling towers, chillers, boilers, etc. IWT services support public health and safety while also facilitating cost savings associated with chemicals, energy, water, and maintenance in industrial and potable water systems. Services range from presenting on-site training and seminars to providing chemical specifications and making recommendations concerning a comprehensive water treatment program for the control of corrosion, mineral scale formation, and biological growth.

Recently, IWT has added to its list of valuable services by offering testing for Legionella pneumophila, the bacterium that causes Legionnaires’ disease–a potentially fatal type of pneumonia (lung infection). L. pneumophila also causes Pontiac fever, a less serious, flu-like illness. This bacterium can grow in building water systems, such as showerheads, sink faucets, cooling towers, ice machines, spa pools, evaporative condensers, hot water systems, and complex plumbing systems. People become infected by inhaling tiny water droplets containing bacteria, or by aspirating contaminated drinking water (accidentally inhaling water into the lungs or windpipe when drinking).

Legionnaires’ disease and L. pneumophila derive their names from a 1976 outbreak of pneumonia that occurred among attendees of an American Legion convention at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia, PA. There were a total of 182 reported cases, with 29 deaths, among the 2000 attendees. The cause of the outbreak was eventually determined to be a previously unknown bacterium, L. pneumophila, which had bred within the cooling tower of the hotel’s air conditioning system and subsequently spread throughout the building, infecting the Legionnaires. Once this bacterium had been isolated, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) were able to retroactively attribute earlier outbreaks of disease to it, including earlier cases of Legionnaires’ and an outbreak of a flu-like illness at a health department in Pontiac, MI which became known as Pontiac fever.

According to the CDC, health departments reported nearly 10,000 cases of Legionnaires’ disease in the United States in 2018; however, Legionnaires’ disease is likely underdiagnosed, so this may underestimate the true incidence. Since no vaccines exist to prevent Legionnaires’ disease, the key to prevention is proper maintenance of building water systems to reduce the risk of growth and spread of bacteria. Regular maintenance testing of large distribution water systems provides validation that the water management program is effectively preventing the growth of L. pneumophila. Testing is also performed during outbreak investigations to identify the source of bacteria where reported cases of Legionnaires’ disease have been confirmed.

IWT offers on-site water sample collection and two laboratory test methods for L. pneumophila detection. The IWT laboratory is one of only six laboratories in Illinois that is CDC ELITE Certified for Legionella testing. The CDC Environmental Legionella Isolation Techniques Evaluation (ELITE) is a yearly program where laboratories demonstrate their proficiency in successfully identifying Legionella in water samples.

If you’re interested in exploring IWT’s testing service for your facility, you can download a flyer on the L. pneumophila testing service, visit the TAP web site, or contact Don Kueneke via email or phone at 217-333-3659.