Legislation & registration

Cooling tower systems

The Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008 came into effect on 1 January 2010. This Act replaced parts of the Building Act 1993 that previously related to cooling tower systems.

Under the Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008 you still have a responsibility to register your cooling tower system as well as prepare and annually audit a risk management plan for your system.

The Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008 and Public Health and Wellbeing Regulations 2009 are available at www.legislation.vic.gov.au.

The following is a summary of the changes introduced by the Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008 and Public Health and Wellbeing Regulations 2009:

• Registration of a cooling tower system will be done by the Department of Health rather than the Building Commission;
• Penalties for failing to register a cooling tower system have increased significantly;
• Registration periods can now be up to 3 years;
• Risk management plans must now include the steps that you are taking to comply with the maintenance and testing requirements (including remedial action following an adverse test result);
• The HCC trigger level for action has been increased to 200,000 cfu/mL and there is now an alternative process which can be followed when a high HCC result is obtained. This is described in ‘Your legal responsibilities’ (see below);
• There is a mandatory requirement for a minimum of a Legionella test every three months. We still strongly recommend the risk management approach which in most sites and systems will result in an increased level of testing that reflects the risks associated with that your system and your site.

We also now strongly recommend that your RMP confirms that you have labelled the towers and the sampling point of each cooling tower system with the CTS registration number (CTS ID). The RMP template (available below) now iincludes this issue.

Legal Responsibilities (57kb, pdf)

What do the changes mean for your RMP??

The easiest way to comply with the requirements of the legislation is to complete the Cooling Tower System – Risk Management Plan Template below.

 Cooling Tower System - Risk Management Plan Template

Insert to Attachment 1 of the 'Guide to developing risk management plans for cooling tower systems' (37kb, MS Word)

Legionella Sampling and Response Flow Chart (38kb, pdf)

 Standard HCC Sampling and Response Flow Chart

Alternative Process for High HCC Sampling and Response Flow Chart (37kb, pdf)

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