436 Raising the Bar: Legionella Management & Industry Standards
Release Date: 09/05/2025
455 Mentors, Mindset, and the CWT: Owning Your Water Career with Nella Fergusson
Scaling UP! H2O
“So one thing I never do is try to start giving remediation or advice before I truly have understood and diagnosed the problem.” Mentorship and certifications don’t replace experience—but they can accelerate it when paired with the right mindset and a disciplined approach to learning. (District Manager, Southern California, ), lays out what “growing up” in industrial water treatment actually looks like: repeated exposure to real problems, strong diagnostic habits, and a willingness to keep learning long after year one. Learning that keeps...
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454 Water Recycling, Innovation, and Industry Wisdom with Dr. Kelle Zeiher
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Industrial cooling is one of the biggest levers industrial facilities can pull on water use—and it’s getting harder to ignore as data centers and other high-heat operations grow. Returning guest (Project Manager at ) breaks down what water reuse looks like when you move past slogans and into the realities of pretreatment, concentrate management, footprint, and cost. Cooling water reuse: the scale of the opportunity Dr. Zeiher reframes “drought” beyond rainfall, emphasizing aquifer recharge and the limits of focusing only on household restrictions. She...
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453 Water Risk, Governance, and Community Engagement with Dr. Annette Davison
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Industrial water professionals sit at the intersection of risk, regulation, and community trust. In this episode, (“the water risk doctor”) joins Trace Blackmore to show how disciplined governance, clear supply chain thinking, and community engagement can turn fragmented water systems into coherent, defensible risk management frameworks. Water risk from source to customer Annette starts with a simple question most customers never ask: “Where’s your water coming from?” She walks through a conceptual supply chain from source to end point—collection, transfer, treatment,...
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452 UV Innovation and Whole-Building Water Safety with Ron Blutrich
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Entamoeba histolytica nearly ended Ron Blutrich’s scientific career. Instead, it pushed him to rethink how we protect people in multi-family buildings, senior facilities, and dense urban centers from invisible microbiological risks in their drinking water. In this episode, he joins host Trace Blackmore to unpack what whole-building UV can (and can’t) do for Legionella, biofilm, and real-world water safety. When One Bad Cup of Water Redefines a Career In the middle of his PhD in molecular genetics, Ron drank from an under-sink reverse osmosis tap at an Airbnb and...
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451 Building a Culture of Innovation and Customer Service with Frank Lecrone
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What happens when you build a company around one niche, listen obsessively to customers, and never stop improving? In this episode, host Trace Blackmore finally sits down for a full-length conversation with , Founder, President, and CEO of . What started in a small 60' x 60' space in Hanover, Pennsylvania, with three employees, maxed-out credit cards, and endless Staples runs has grown into a 300+-person organization serving industrial water professionals around the world. Frank shares how AquaPhoenix became “the booth everyone wants to be next to” at...
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450 Wastewater Advocacy and Innovation with Robin Deal
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“The More You Know” - Robin Deal A million-gallon-a-day perspective, distilled into actionable steps. , AquaPure Product Manager at unpacks how seasoned pros can squeeze more performance—and less sludge—out of industrial wastewater systems without compromising compliance or plant uptime. From “clear water in a jar” to stable discharge in the field Robin details a practical jar-testing workflow: start from upstream processes, target pH using hydroxide/sulfide solubility curves, choose the right coagulant (aluminum, iron, calcium, lanthanum, or organics),...
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449 Michael Bourgeois on AWT Partnerships and Professional Growth
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Get stuck in – Michael Bourgeois, CWT How do standards get written in ways that working water treaters can actually meet? In this conversation, AWT Past President, current Related Trade Organization (RTO) Committee Chair, and Chemco Products Company Operations Manager, , explains how AWT’s liaisons collaborate with peer organizations, so guidance reflects field reality—operations, risk, and achievable compliance. From Field Bags to Board Rooms: Why RTOs Matter Bourgeois outlines the purpose of AWT’s RTO structure: volunteer liaisons track and influence work at groups...
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448 2025 Halloween Special
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447 Unlocking Team Potential with Culture Index with Randi Fargen
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Hiring in industrial water is slow, specialized, and expensive to get wrong. In this conversation, executive advisor explains how a two-question, 5–7 minute Culture Index survey becomes an ongoing management and coaching system—not just a hiring screen—so owners cut turnover risk, speed onboarding, and improve day-to-day communication. From “assessment fatigue” to a usable language Most teams dread long assessments. This survey takes minutes and measures four primary traits—autonomy, sociability, pace/patience, conformity—plus three...
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446 Leveraging the Culture Index for Business Success with Danielle Scimeca and Conor Parrish
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How do you make “right person, right seat” a repeatable system—not a hope? ’s (President) and returning guest (Chief Growth Officer) share how the Culture Index became a decisive tool for coaching, hiring, and a company-wide restructure. If you lead field service, customer service, or operations in industrial water, this conversation offers practical patterns you can apply the next time a role feels misaligned or a 1:1 stall on surface-level updates. From intuition to instrumentation Trace opens with the origin story and quickly moves to why Danielle and Conor adopted...
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With those words, Jemma Tennant highlights one of the most profound differences between Legionella management in Europe and the United States. In this episode of Scaling UP! H2O, host Trace Blackmore welcomes Jemma Tennant, Chair of the Water Management Society (WMSoc), to explore how legislation, enforcement, and professional training shape the fight against Legionella.
Proactive Regulation and Duty of Care
The UK treats Legionella as a foreseeable and preventable risk. Jemma explains how laws like the Health and Safety at Work Act and COSHH Regulations require mandatory Legionella risk assessments, temperature monitoring, and written control schemes—even when no cases have occurred. This contrasts with the U.S., where ASHRAE 188 serves as guidance rather than enforceable law, often triggering enforcement only after outbreaks.
Jemma shares a case study where a housing association was fined £1.2 million despite no recorded illness, underscoring the UK’s proactive stance on protecting public health.
Hospitals, Design, and Emerging Challenges
From hospital plumbing layouts to new “waterless” intensive care units, Jemma details how design choices can either mitigate or magnify waterborne risk. Scotland’s model of involving water safety groups at the design stage provides a proactive example for healthcare worldwide. She also outlines how climate change, net-zero initiatives, and rising ambient temperatures are complicating control strategies across Europe.
Raising Standards Through Collaboration
As Chair of WMSoc, Jemma is leading efforts to raise industry standards and reverse what she calls a “race to the bottom.” She describes partnerships with AWT in the U.S. and LMAG in Australia to share expertise across borders. The episode also explores her pursuit of the Certified Water Technologist (CWT) credential and her vision for adapting the certification for UK professionals.
Conclusion
This conversation is a call to action for water treatment professionals everywhere: regulations, standards, and collaboration matter. Whether in cooling towers, hospitals, or housing estates, Legionella management requires vigilance, shared knowledge, and a commitment to raising the bar. Listen to the full episode and discover how global collaboration can shape safer water management practices.
Stay engaged, keep learning, and continue scaling up your knowledge!
Timestamps
01:55 - Trace Blackmore introduces the final installment of Legionella Awareness Month 2025
05:30 - Water You Know with James McDonald
07:30 - Upcoming Events for Water Treatment Professionals
14:50 - Interview with Jemma Tennant, SMS Environmental, Chair of the Water Management Society (WMSoc)
15:24 - Jemma’s background: growing up in the U.S. and UK, science upbringing, rotifers, and wastewater treatment career.
32:25 - The Water Management Society: structure, training, collaboration with AWT and LMAG
43:00 - Raising industry standards: combating the “race to the bottom” in UK water treatment.
Quotes
“In the UK, we’re prosecuted for the potential for harm, not just actual harm. Legionella is treated as a foreseeable and preventable risk.”
“It’s the transition between just doing the task to understanding the why behind the task.”
“We’re seeing a serious drop in industry standards—a race to the bottom—and that’s why raising the bar is so important.”
“At the end of it, the CWT covers everything. You end up being a complete water treater.”
“Always be honest when you don’t know the answer, then go and learn. That’s how you grow.”
Connect with Jemma Tennant
Phone: 447828315336
Email: j.tennant@sms-environmental.co.uk
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jemma-tennant-mwmsoc-2636985b/
Guest Resources Mentioned
Water Management Society (WMSoc)
LMAG - Legionella Management Advisory Group - LMAG
The Women by Kristin Hannah (Author)
HTM 04-01 – UK healthcare water safety standards
The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 (COSHH Regulations 2002)
Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974
ANAB (US Laboratory Accreditation)
Scaling UP! H2O Resources Mentioned
AWT (Association of Water Technologies)
ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 188-2021 for Legionnaires’ Disease Risk Management
ASHRAE Standard-188-2021, Building Water Management Plans – Summary
Scaling UP! H2O Academy video courses
Ep 101 The One with Colin Frayne, CWT
Ep 203 The One With Our Across The Pond Legionella Expert, John Sandford
Ep 370 Unlocking Legionella Solutions: Perspectives on Regulations and Best Practices
Water You Know with James McDonald
Question: Does Hydroxide Alkalinity in a steam boiler water ALWAYS equal 2P-M?
2025 Events for Water Professionals
Check out our Scaling UP! H2O Events Calendar where we’ve listed every event Water Treaters should be aware of by clicking HERE.
