Orange County, California was ground zero to one of the nations largest Legionnaires’ disease outbreaks last year. 22 people fell ill and one person died.
Local health officials were never able to find the exact cause of the infections, but they believed the outbreak was connected to Disneyland since 19 out of the 22 people affected had visited the park.
Back in March, the park was fined more than $33,000 for failing to properly clean cooling equipment linked to the outbreak and for other related violations by The California Occupational Safety and Health Administration, according to a citation issued by Cal-OSHA and obtained by the LA Times.
Cal-OSHA only investigates hazards that endanger workers, but they began looking into the Legionnaires’ cause because three Disneyland employees fell ill during the outbreak and two of them required hospitalization. The findings do not address how the 19 non-employees were infected.
“The employer did not follow the manufacturer’s cooling tower start-up maintenance and water treatment procedure to control outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease,” Cal-OSHA said in the citation. “As a result, two employees suffered serious illness requiring hospitalization of more than 24 hours.”
Disneyland denies the claims stating that the source of the outbreak could have been elsewhere in Anaheim and they have appealed the citations. In October the company will make their case at a hearing before a three-member appeals.
“We strongly object to Cal-OSHA’s allegation that our cooling towers caused any illness, since the source of the outbreak has never been scientifically determined,” Disneyland spokeswoman Suzi Brown said in a statement.
In August 2017, people who had visited Disneyland or spent time in Anaheim began to report feeling ill. They were diagnosed with Legionnaires’ disease, a lung infection caused by breathing in water droplets containing bacteria known as Legionella.
Orange County health officials have stated that Disneyland’s cooling towers have been free of Legionella since November, and there is currently no risk to the public.
Disney said it had learned about “increased Legionnaires’ disease cases in Anaheim” from county health officials Oct. 27. “We conducted a review and learned that two cooling towers had elevated levels of Legionella bacteria,” Dr. Pamela Hymel, chief medical officer for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, said in a statement at the time. “These towers were treated with chemicals that destroy the bacteria and are currently shut down.”
Most Legionnaires’ outbreaks are linked to cooling towers, part of an air conditioning system that releases mist. The illness does not spread from person to person, so people who become sick each have to inhale the contaminated droplets. Without proper cleaning, cooling towers can create the perfect environment for Legionella to grow. The cooling towers require regular disinfecting to ensure they are not developing Legionella, experts say.
Health officials never formally identified the cooling towers as the source, and Disneyland officials have said that the test results don’t definitively prove that the towers were to blame.
Brown said there are several cooling towers nearby that are outside the park and were never tested and pointed out that three people who fell sick had not visited the park, including the one person who died.
The Cal-OSHA investigation found that Disneyland had not adequately cleaned the towers, which caused high levels of bacteria to grow.
One of the towers had been drained of water when it was taken offline at the beginning of 2017, but bacteria thrived in stagnant water still in the pipes, Cal-OSHA investigators said in a written report.
Disneyland was “not effectively performing weekly bacteria inspections” at that time, so water containing Legionella was sent back into both cooling towers when they were brought online in August 2017, according to a Cal-OSHA document.
“The employer failed to ensure equipment in service (was) kept clean, in sanitary condition, inspected and maintained as recommended by the manufacturer, as not to give rise to employee harmful exposure to Legionella pneumophila and other airborne bacteria,” the Cal-OSHA citation said.
The three workers who contracted Legionnaires’ disease — a cook, an operating engineer and a laborer — came within 50 to 200 feet of the cooling towers, a Cal-OSHA document said.
Disneyland typically tests its cooling towers quarterly, according to theme park records that were obtained through a public records request from the Orange County public health department.
But the cooling towers weren’t tested for Legionella last year while they were offline, the document shows. The first tests in 2017 came in late September, when the lab reports showed high levels of the bacteria.
The bulk of the fines levied against Disneyland were for not cleaning the towers properly. The agency also fined Disneyland for not reporting all the employee illnesses to Cal-OSHA.
“We have continually cooperated with Cal-OSHA’s various investigations, and fully complied with its reporting requirements with respect to our employees,” Brown said in the statement.