Environmental Dept. Credits Quick Response

By John Severance

On May 6, about 10 minutes before 5 p.m., Raj Solomon’s telephone rang.
Solomon, the program manager for the New Mexico State Environmental Board, had just been notified to get to Socorro as soon as he could.
“The South Carolina Department of Health notified our state health board late afternoon on May 6 to say that there were three cases of legionella and that it was very serious and it was at the Best Western (Inn and Suites) in Socorro,” Solomon said.
Solomon, two inspectors from the Environmental office and another person from the health department hopped in their state vehicles and left Albuquerque, arriving in Socorro around 9:30 a.m. on May 7.
Solomon said the health department took eight water samples and 15 swab samples and that one of the 15 swabs came back positive for legionella, the bacteria that causes Legionnaires Disease.
Solomon could not provide names of the people infected in South Carolina. But he said there were two males and a female and they were all firefighters attending an explosives seminar at New Mexico Tech.
Solomon said the victims were at the hotel either the last week of April or first week of May and that two of three victims had been hospitalized.
Solomon said all the victims have been released from the hospital but one of them spent some time in the intensive care unit.
Solomon instructed the hotel, owned by Socorro mayor Ravi Bhasker, to close the pool and spa until further notice.
“What’s key is that we responded right away,” Solomon said.
Bhasker and his hotel staff have been proactive in trying to correct the situation and the mayor still does not believe that the Best Western is the source of the legionella.
Bhasker hired Evidenced Based Solutions, a consultant from Chicago and EBSol retested the facility on May 26.
EBSol president Gunner Lyslo said that preliminary results on those tests have come back clean but he stressed those results were preliminary.
Final results were not available at press time, but they were expected to be known this week, Solomon said.
“Either way, they will have to do a remediation based on the consultant’s test.
“(EBSol president) Gunner (Lyslo) will recommend the pool and spa operate at twice the recommended level of bromine levels,” Solomon said.
“Instead of two parts per million, he will tell them the level should be four parts per million.
“The results should be in soon. They will call us out and we will reinspect them again.”

Environmental Dept. Credits Quick Response