RAPID: Shutdowns and Consequences ? Extreme Plumbing Stagnation and Recommissioning

Engineering - The explosive onset of school, business, and event venue shutdowns across the nation to encourage social distancing in response to COVID-19 will be disruptive on multiple levels. While 2-4 week shutdowns are increasingly being declared, some organizations have warned of longer closures. The proposing team's own school and office building water testing evidence indicates such extended shutdowns will have drastic consequences on building drinking water safety: chemical and microbiological water quality potentially presenting serious public health risks. As inhabitants return, they will encounter extremely stagnated water with excessive lead, copper, and bacterial concentrations, that may include pathogens like Legionella pneumophila. There are no national or industry guidelines for building reopening after extended shutdowns. A fundamental understanding of water quality deterioration mechanisms precipitated by large-scale shutdowns and plumbing decontamination is critically lacking. The Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) serves over 100,000 public health professionals and has made clear that building recommissioning practices are lacking. The COVID-19 building closures present a rare opportunity to study chemical-microbiological-physical- material interactions in multiple otherwise operational buildings. At both full- and bench-scales, the team will (1) characterize disinfectant, heavy metal, and bacterial changes during extended building closures, and (2) develop evidence-based plumbing remediation methods to address water quality deterioration.

Using a college campus affected by COVID-19, water quality will be characterized in closed or under- utilized buildings over the course of 5 months (Objective 1). All in-person class meetings have been cancelled for spring semester at Purdue, while research activities can continue, allowing real-scale study of buildings impacted by closure. Before fall semester, decontamination procedures will be tested (Objective 2). Bench-scale experiments will be conducted in parallel to simulate water use conditions and probe the fundamental factors that influenced deterioration and plumbing decontamination effectiveness. The team will elucidate the fundamental factors that control extreme chemical and microbiological transformations in plumbing that are occurring nationwide during the COVID-19 outbreak, as well as during many other disasters.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.