HOT SPRINGS -- Two Garland Towers residents have reportedly contracted Legionnaires' disease, according to a notice the Arkansas Department of Health sent residents last month.
The notice to residents of the Oriole Street apartments said that per Health Department protocols, residents are notified when two or more cases are reported at a single address in a three-month period. Dr. Jennifer Dillaha, director of the department's Center for Health Advancement, said the cases were reported to the public health agency by medical professionals who treated the tenants.
She said Legionnaires', a waterborne form of pneumonia, can have mild to severe effects and cause death if not treated with the proper course of antibiotics. The notice to residents said the building's water would be tested for Legionella bacteria, which infects the lungs through water vapor from showers, faucets, hot tubs and air-conditioning cooling towers.
Preliminary test results that the department provided in response to a public records request detected Legionella DNA in some of the samples collected last month, but Dillaha said further testing is needed to confirm if the bacteria are viable.
"It doesn't tell us if those bacteria are dead or alive," she said, explaining that Legionella is regularly found in water and mostly harmless if deprived of the proper living conditions. "We don't know if it's viable or not. We're interested to see if it's live bacteria. That takes time. They have to be cultured on a special medium with a petri dish with special food for them to grow."
She said the bacteria thrive in water that is 77-109 degrees. The National Park Service recommended last month that all building owners/lessees in Hot Springs National Park discontinue using showers connected to thermal water sources after Legionella bacteria were detected at Quapaw Baths & Spa.
"It's usually in buildings with complex water systems like chillers and boilers," Dillaha said. "A hotel may have them, a hospital, a cruise ship."
The Garland Towers manager referred requests for comment to Belmont Management Co. in Fort Smith. The company did not respond to messages seeking comment.
It's among the partners who, according to property records, acquired the property from the Garland County Council on Aging in 2006 for $1.75 million. The next year the group granted the Arkansas Development Finance Authority a security interest in the property in return for $400,000 in tax credits.
The state lending agency conditioned allocation of the credits on a percentage of the property's apartment units being rent-restricted and reserved for low-income tenants for a period of 35 years.
Metro on 11/01/2019