Are AI Data Centers the Hidden Pathogen Factories of Tomorrow?

Join host John Brocas and guest expert Dr. David Krause on HC3 for a startling deep dive into the unseen—and often unspoken—dangers of our fast-expanding AI world. Sure, AI is transforming every aspect of our lives, from medicine to our smartphones. But have you ever stopped to consider the environmental and public health consequences of the massive data centers making it all possible?

In this eye-opening episode, we peel back the curtain on the "dark side" of artificial intelligence: how the data centers powering our digital future are guzzling water, straining local resources, and potentially unleashing a host of deadly pathogens like Legionella. Dr. Krause, a leading voice in environmental health and toxicology, reveals why these energy- and water-hungry facilities—even those a mile away from your home—could create the perfect breeding ground for diseases and forever chemicals.

You'll discover:

• The truth about data center cooling towers and their link to outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease
• Why “forever chemicals” like PFAS could be the next big threat hiding in the AI supply chain
• The environmental risks of building server farms in drought-stricken regions
• How lax oversight and regulatory loopholes are putting communities at risk
• What you can do as a professional or concerned citizen to advocate for safer, smarter AI infrastructure

If you think the dangers of AI stop at lost jobs or digital misinformation, think again. The real risks might be much closer to home—and a lot more tangible. This episode isn’t just for techies or scientists; it’s a wakeup call for anyone who cares about the future intersection of technology, health, and our environment.

Subscribe, listen, and join the conversation—because your health may depend on it.

Links referenced in this episode:

• hc3fl.com

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

Welcome back to another discussion with HC3.

I'm here with my good friend and colleague, Dr. David Krauss, and we're going to be talking about something that is all over the news.

In fact, it's all over the world.

And we are moving into a new era.

We've been in this era for a long time and it's taken over every aspect of our lives.

And so we're going to have a discussion about AI today.

But an aspect to AI that you may never even considered because it has touched everything.

It has touched everything in government.

AI exists now.

I mean literally, it's a proxy war to try and get ahead of the game in AI.

We have AI on our phones.

We now have AI in the medical rooms.

We have AI in every aspect of our lives.

But at what cost?

What cost do we have AI?

And there's things that we need to consider.

We're going to talk a little bit of Project Blue Book.

I think it's actually.

No, that was a UFO project.

So.

David.

David, welcome.

How are you doing, my friend?

Good morning, good morning, Good morning to see you and looking forward to this conversation.

I certainly keep getting asked the questions of the benefits or the potential implications of AI in the field of environmental health and toxicology.

In many ways it holds many promises, but there's no free lunch.

And I think we need to really look at this with a stone sober cup of coffee.

You know, and I have, I have my coffee here as well.

So this, this is a bigger conversation because it's true.

Like, you know, we have, we've been forced to adopt AI essentially though there's people that are still relatively scared of has it's done dark in its light side.

It's almost like this Star wars analogy in it is like, you know, come to the dark side or, you know, fight with the force.

You know, may the force force be with you.

And.

But there's a hidden, there's actually a hidden aspect of it that really nobody thinks about.

And recently we've had a case in Georgia which we're going to talk about as well.

And there's potentially this Project Blue.

I.

Believe that something that, you know, we had discussed.

But, you know, we can't do without AI now.

And I think that it's.

The hunger is so insatiable for it in every aspect of life.

But at what cost now?

Because we don't.

We.

There's a hidden danger to this and this is to do with what we understand about HC3 pathogens.

Let's let's dive into that a little bit because people don't realize what does it take for us to enjoy AI on my phone, AI on video, AI and every.

What does it take?

I mean, obviously artificial intelligence, which is, you know, that's a software aspect and frankly, I probably don't know enough about it to speak intelligently.

But ultimately it relies upon heavy duty, massive computing networks and server farms and data centers to be able to answer that question, generate that image or provide a query on what you're asking.

And that's fine, that's great.

I mean, there's a great use for that.

And obviously we wouldn't have built these types of computer infrastructure and capacity to do this.

I think there's, there's two aspects we need to think about.

One is, you know, is it coming for our jobs?

Is it going to replace us?

What is it going to reduce, you know, supplant?

But, you know, we need to recognize that it's not as accurate, reliable and intuitive as we think it might be when we ask IT questions.

And often we ask IT questions about things we don't know so much about.

That's one way.

And at the end of the day, I think AI is only, it's only guided towards all the information that's already out there.

And essentially it's just scraping everything out there, the good and the bad.

And so you have to be able.

To discern that all of the information, it's not.

You know, I'm old enough to remember card catalogs in the Dewey Decimal system and go into the library.

I remember the old.

I remember we're giving everything away here, ladies and gentlemen.

But you remember getting the Yellow Pages and you wanted to get something like a component, even a tool.

You just quickly go through A, B, C, and my God, think I remember that.

I remember going to school and sitting on and having the.

But we don't, we don't have that.

I mean, I remember writing and now our children can hardly write.

In fact, actually, and here's the thing, before we get into all the pathogenic stuff, I also believe, and I'm sure people out there as well, AI is also making us dumber because we're losing critical thinking.

I think beyond critical thinking, I think you're losing a lot of fundamental information that historical, valuable research publications, articles, journals that did not get uploaded into the web.

There's a popular perception that everything that's on, you know, everything that we know is on the web, is scannable, is searched.

It's just not the case it's just not the case.

There's so much information out there, you know, just as simple as my Master's thesis back 25 years ago, some time ago, I found invaluable information that had literally been lost to science because of electricity was looking at combustion of diffusion, flames, candles in the indoor environment.

We hadn't really dealt with that.

I used as a fundamental research source lectures from Michael Faraday.

Of the Faraday Cage.

Faraday Cage, yes.

He was a physiochemist.

There he goes.

Lectures at Oxford on the combustion of a candle.

And that's not available online, that is not scanned in that information for this.

And that led to research that I performed that looked at human health effects and impacts to indoor environments.

And eventually NASA even uploaded and used my thesis for questions about how flames would burn in outer space in that space station.

And so.

Well, that might be.

That's an interesting bedtime read.

That's a bit of a leap.

But don't assume that all the information that there is to know is on the web and accessible to AI.

It's not.

I mean, I know from even my point of view, David, that my interest in psychology and in social psych, there's papers, there's researchers that have got research that is not in books and that is not in papers, that is up in journals.

You have to go to a library, you have to go to university, you have to go into archives.

There's a lot there that's obviously still missing and still great information.

And I think that actually does tie into that.

We still don't know enough.

And certainly in our field in environmental health, where does the potential impact then come from in our field?

Because it's not as cut and dry as everybody is potentially seeing it.

And as you rightfully knew recently, you were at niha, you did a great presentation which we're going to have up for you, ladies and gentlemen, very soon.

We're going to have that presentation he gave at the end, a great talk which covers some of this that we're talking about today as well.

But you kind of went into the potential of it being an opportunity for environmental health as well, especially not so much to do with the data, but where there's going to be potential issues because of there's not information out there.

Yeah, yeah.

I think there.

There needs to be, I'll say, general, generally better awareness of what AI is and, and the cost of it, what it takes to construct it, to maintain it, to, you know, run those calculations and, and perform that and create those data centers.

And one of them, you know, the massive construction that is going on across this country and across the world for AI data centers.

And it's just a data center.

I mean, you know, it could be used for anything.

But these massive computer server farms and data centers that are being constructed, you know, all over the, all over the country, they're being constructed in areas where, you know, they're as close to people as they can get.

And available energy, power, because they're a massive energy hog.

And water, a lot of people don't think about that.

Computers need water.

The query that you put into ChatGPT or.

Nobody thinks about that, nobody thinks about that.

Environmental impact.

And something that you and I discussed is like, you know, you think about your computer.

My Mac here, if I've got loads of, I've normally got loads of windows open and stuff like that, and it's generating heat and that heat has to dissipate.

And so you imagine then in these massive data centers, this is the same thing, but on a large.

And nobody thinks about it.

We just use AI and think, well, I got a prompt, I've used this, I'm getting some information, but what does it take?

And then this is where the problem rises.

Yeah, there's a, I'll say, a naive belief that, you know, the, the amount of resources necessary to answer that question or run that AI or to monitor some query is insignificant.

It's just that you don't see it.

You don't see those resources and the impact it has on people, communities and, you know, our environment.

You know, yeah, we make a lot of electricity, but there's a tremendous amount of efforts going on right now with, with construction of AI data centers.

And, you know, there's, I believe it's.

Was it Project Stargate that the Trump administration is pushing for an increase in these.

And this is built upon an executive order under Biden that was signed right before he left office, was directing Department of Energy and Department of Defense, Bureau of Land Management to basically give or lease properties to, you know, Meta and other large companies to build AI data centers on federal properties on federal lands.

What that's going to do is bypass any state review and frankly, almost all review of resources impacts on local communities and public health are carried out at the state level.

And if that is simply bypassed or not allowed, you're going to get what you're going to get.

And these data centers.

Let's talk a little bit about how and why data centers even need water.

You know, what does a computer need water for?

It doesn't live, it doesn't transpire.

But the most cost efficient way and the cheapest way.

And the current technologies we have to develop to deal with heat dissipation is the same one we've been using for over 100 years.

And those are cooling towers and evaporative condensers and, you know, cooling systems that rely upon massive quantities of water to serve as a cooling fluid.

And it dissipates that heat with fans and water basins.

And these are the same things that you'd see on top of a building or in a back parking lot at a hotel or a hospital.

And these are often the causes of Legionnaires disease outbreaks, as well as exposure to other waterborne pathogens.

They don't just blow out clean water, they recirculate that water, they recycle that water, they concentrate that water, they treat that water with a lot of anti corrosive agents, treat that water with a lot of antimicrobial agents and that water becomes demonstrably contaminated.

It's either spewed out into the air in small droplets or it's dumped.

So do you think then, David, that we are going to.

Now we've talked about on the show on emerging pathogens, the potential and.

Well, not the potential, but the reality of increasing pathogens, especially Legionella and pneumophila and the amount of cases, obviously that are not getting reported, but the cases keep growing.

We've just had another outbreak, another death happened in New York.

We've heard, you know, this is, this is the reason for the season, so to speak.

But do you think now because of our insatiable appetite for technology, that we, that this byproduct, we are going to see much more, a greater influence of pathogens coming from AI data centers?

I don't know how it's avoidable.

I mean, they're good ones.

Yeah, these, these data centers, some of them are pulling up to and demanding, according to their own reports, a million gallons of water a day.

One more I read, I think in the Project Blue we had the article that came out recently.

It was like 3 million gallons in some data centers.

They were saying internationally, there's other data centers, there was like 30 million gallons of water.

Yeah, I mean, they will, the data centers that are being constructed will demand more power, more electricity than the communities that are nearby, and they will demand more water.

That water is irreplaceable.

That water cannot, you know, once you contaminated it by using it in these cooling systems, there's no requirements nor enforcement of any guidance or recommendations that they decontaminate that water, they clean that water, they return it to a potable state, it just gets dumped into the local sewer, septic systems are spread across the land.

It's not a discussion going on right now.

And many of these data centers are being built in drought stricken areas in traditionally and historically low rain areas.

And one of the biggest ones and one of the ones closest to major completion is outside of Abilene, Texas.

That is scheduled to be a half trillion dollar project.

Now that that's obviously going to impact not only the local flora and fauna.

And as we know, ladies and gentlemen, you know, Legionella exists in the soil.

And so this is one of the reasons that we'll have this path of that of the pathogen to come in.

But I, you know, with that, that type of operation it's obviously going to affect the local environment and then the people that are living there.

Because, and if I can, let's jump on.

There was a recent report and that we talked about.

You sent me some information.

Hey Joe, you know, check this out.

In Georgia where the locals can't drink the water, they can't, it's obvious that there's getting, they're getting, it's getting contaminated, right?

So, well, it's being contaminated by two processes.

One is what's being re reintroduced back to that water.

But the second is simply when wells, when water tables are over taxed and they are drained rapidly, the sediment there becomes a higher level of sediment in those.

And that makes the pumps not work.

That makes the water you pull out unpotable.

It requires extensive cleaning and disinfection and sediment removal to work.

It increases the amount of minerals and metals that are in the water.

So when you tax those, that water is no longer available for people or agriculture.

So when they're putting these things in, in you know, rural areas, they're not just impacting the people who live there, they're impacting the, the ability of, of of them and then that area to grow food, to manage crops, to manage livestock.

And so that has, that has got to be addressed up front.

And we are simply being asked by the manufacturers who are just hell bent to get these systems going to trust them, trust us.

I think there's a plan in Abilene.

They said oh, after the first two years we will move to a closed loop system, a direct to chip cooling system.

Trust us.

What if they don't?

Well, yeah, that's kind of like, it's like how long is a piece of string?

There's not enough Information for anybody in the local environment or the area to say, well, what can we trust?

I mean your track record has not been that great.

And after you've spent a half trillion dollars, who's going to shut it down?

Who's going to shut down?

Let's face it, they may already introduce the pathogens that will exist and then it's again, is going to have that perfect environment for survival.

And thriving data centers are notorious for not wanting to use the most effective forms of biocides in their cooling towers.

They don't want to use oxidizing biocides because that material also corrodes.

Yeah, and it would corrode the chips.

And it can corrode the systems in materials in that area.

And they are very reluctant to do that.

And so they're using systems and chemicals, non oxidizing biocides, which have their own issues but are not as effective.

And there is no oversight, there's no required testing, there's no monitoring, there's no reporting, there's no assurance that the systems that they're using are safely protecting the either the workers there at the plant, at the data centers or the surrounding community.

But I got a big chuckle out of the, their plan B.

So the plan B is to go to a closed loop system.

Well, that sounds great, but there's no free lunch.

You have to dissipate heat.

And so it has to go into the cooling tower.

You still have to use a cooling tower.

Exactly.

You know, there is, unless you're doing this on a coastline where you're able to pipe water down into lower depths of the ocean so that you can dissipate heat there, which may have its own issues, or you use some type of geothermal where you're able to push the water lower and lower.

That has not been something I think that's really explored, nor do I think it's probably wise.

I mean it creates a whole other set of issues.

But the plan B is to use dielectric fluids and to have this closed loop system.

And these dielectric fluids are, there's two, two, two forms.

So one, they would use these chips, these small tubes that would flow in and through the chips to effectively remove the heat and then dissipate that using the standard methodology.

The other is to use immersion fluids.

Well, that sounds really interesting.

Literally running the computers, putting the servers into a liquid medium, into liquid baths.

And doesn't that create even more of an issue?

Because obviously there's going to be, it's going to be contaminated in the bath.

Well, what are dielectric fluids?

That sounds like an interesting.

It does, yeah.

You know, whenever we've tried to create a fluid that dissipates heat, that doesn't corrode and doesn't.

What is it?

It doesn't cause electrical conductivity.

It doesn't short circuit electrical wires.

I mean, there's a reason that they use these type of fluids.

The last time we used a fluid like that, it was PCBs in transformers, oils, great properties.

Turns out to be a highly contaminating and forever type of thing.

And that's another issue, a whole other issue.

But the dielectric fluids, many of them are.

They are forever chemicals, and they do evaporate into the atmosphere.

And if we've heard about forever chemicals, we talk about pfas.

Yeah, dielectric fluids are high in PFAS content.

So.

So we're not.

We're not just talking about the potential for Legionella and pathogens.

We're also talking about forever chemicals.

And so this is a whole.

This is a whole new landscape, essentially.

That's not even being considered.

Yeah, I think we really need to pump the brakes on this until we have the technology and the equipment and an agreement on how this is going to balance out.

Because, you know, a full steam ahead on this will result in a variety of issues.

And first and foremost is going to be excessive water use in this country, massive water shortages.

And whenever we take steps to conserve water or to cut down on water use, we increase the probability of Legionella and other pathogen growth in that water system.

The second being, we have to stop introducing PFAS into our economy, into our systems and into our environment before we're worrying about trying to remove PFAS in concentrations to concentrations below 7 or 4 parts per trillion in our drinking water.

Why don't we stop putting it into our food chain, into our water sources, and stop adding before you are worried about trying to decontaminate it?

So those things are incongruous with AI data systems right now.

I don't see a straightforward path to get these systems in place without creating harm and impacts to water systems.

Now, that leads me on then to this conundrum because recently, obviously, the talk that you gave at NEHA and other discussions that you've had, there is a concern with toxicology within environmental health that, as you said, has AI coming to take our jobs, et cetera.

And that's really not what we should be worrying about because you've highlighted the potential now because of what's inevitably going to happen, inevitably going to come.

There's hidden opportunities here.

Now I don't want to sound, ladies and gentlemen, don't get me wrong.

I don't want massive outbreaks like to keep us all in jobs.

But it is going to happen.

There's going to be death.

AI is going to have a deadly dark side to it.

Just like Star Wars.

There's going to be a deadly dark side to it.

Where does the opportunities lie in environmental health for those professionals out there now that you discussed or you've highlighted?

Absolutely, absolutely.

As I pointed out at the NEHA conference is that there's a full on assault for against environmental health professionals in the public and private sector.

You know, we often are bearers of bad news, but bad news comes whether you have a clarion announcement or not.

Well, we've never sat down and listened to the news each day and it all been perfect and wonderful.

I mean we're faced with it daily.

Absolutely, absolutely.

But given that environmental health professionals, occupational health professionals are keenly capable of and positioned to recognize, evaluate, assess and test to identify those issues that are surrounding water and we all have some form of impact to our operations where water is a key critical components.

Without it, we don't have hand sanitation.

Without it, we don't have cooling.

Without it, we don't have sewage and waste wastewater management.

Without it, we don't have schools, hospitals, libraries or frankly even computers.

So if we literally run out of water, if we waste this precious resource, can we wasting it in a way that causes contamination, allows us, you know, prevents us from using it safely, then literally the computer systems, the AI systems that are, you know, are being constructed can't operate.

And maybe even the ones we need to to operate, even basic systems, you know, forget the AI, just the, the management of, you know, power and water and traffic and all those types of systems are critical.

So yeah, environmental health professionals absolutely need to increase their awareness of their local awareness of the issues, sources, contaminants and be able to step in and solve those problems that are just over the horizon.

They're impacting us today with, you know, these flash flood events that are impacting populated areas as well as rural areas.

Those flash flood events drastically impact the potable water systems.

Water main breaks happen.

The flash floods tend to damage the water mains.

Asheville, North Carolina took months and months to replace significant water mains to get.

And there's work still going on actually in because this is where I am at the moment and there is still an impact from Hurricane Helene and no doubt there has been Many diseases or many illnesses that have come from that, and that's probably still going on as well.

And I think that's the other thing that people don't understand is that we love this whole idea of the cloud or information safe in the cloud.

It's up there, but it's not.

It's in the data center.

And if this data center fails and we, we contaminate water and we can't use the water anymore, all of that goes away.

Your data disappears.

That's right.

That's right.

The, the ability to clean water for industrial processes and cooling systems are one of those is really critical.

And people often think, oh, it's industrial water.

It doesn't have to be as clean raw.

No.

Yeah, it's a bit of a snowman.

What's that?

That's a bit of a misnomer to think it doesn't have to be clean.

Oh, it's huge.

And it's naive and it's wrong because actually industrial water systems have to be cleaner than the potable water you and I use in our homes.

Let's talk a little bit about, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to be doing another discussion on cooling towers.

But I want to kind of that sedue in there because this is one of the biggest issues, especially with these data centers.

Like how close are the cooling towers to these data centers and how close are they to people that, how that they could get, you know, they could actually contract Legionella and other pathogens like.

Because this is where I see that there's going to be a massive problem with these cooling towers at the data centers.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, the cooling towers are generally part and parcel.

They're right outside the buildings.

So, you know, that's, that's the typical location.

So you can usually see the, the cooling towers and the cooling systems integrated with that.

Where you have power companies or, you know, power systems, power suppliers present in those systems to support them individually because they, they outpace the available power.

Those absolutely are, are part and parcel as well.

And production of energy also requires a lot of water.

So, you know, it's kind of a double whammy as far as the distance it can impact local communities.

Well, certainly any workers who may be there during construction or operations and maintenance, which will be fewer and fewer over time, they pose a risk of being exposed.

And then the question of how far can those mists and those pathogens travel in the air.

There's been estimates all over the, all over the map, but I would say, I would hesitate to say we Know how far those pathogens can travel?

Oh, yeah.

There have been estimates of, you know, in excess of a mile.

And I'm like, oh, okay.

Well, maybe it's not just whether they can travel that far, but are they still viable and infected, infectious and capable?

And are they colonizing along the path?

Are they.

Yeah, if they're going down that path, if they're on that journey and they get a potential area, maybe, you know, a bend or whatever else it is that it can colonize, and then so that distance becomes elongated, it becomes more than a mile because it would colonize as it goes down.

There's that.

There's the source, I'll say, the aerosols that are generated, and we absolutely need definitive answers on that.

In an urban environment, in a rural environment, agricultural environment, how far do those aerosols travel?

Because that has not.

That's modeled, which means somebody did calculations and estimates, and we need to validate and verify those models.

You need the empirical evidence from.

That's not settled science.

Yeah.

The thing is, we have to realize that these cooling towers and the reason they use so much water is not just how much is spewed into the air as part of their cooling system, but they concentrate solids and pathogens and chemicals in those systems, and each day they dump thousands of gallons of water and replace it with fresh water.

Well, when you dump that water, where does it go?

Is it going into your potable water system?

I mean, into your.

Your wastewater system?

Is it going into a septic system?

Is it going to a holding pond?

Is it going into a river?

Is it going into, you know, municipal waste system?

Yeah.

And in Florida, another twist to all this is that in Florida, California, and many other states that are water starved, they have gone down the path of what they call direct potable reuse, which is requiring that starting the process that will eventually end in every drop of water discharged from a sewage treatment plant will be cleaned to some degree and reused and put not back into the environment where it can magically become safe again, but directly piped back into the municipal water system.

And the unfortunate part, yeah, we even.

Bear the thought of that, like, well.

Welcome to the 21st century, because we are going to have to do this.

I think.

Actually, Rob McNeely and I discussed this as well in one of the other discussions we had where he was saying, it's already happening in Florida.

Yeah, yeah.

It's on a pilot scale study at this point.

The problem is many of the treatment I'll say the technologies necessary to remove the things that frankly should be top of our list, pharmaceutical drugs.

Many of the pathogens that we are talking about here.

Yeah.

They are not removed, they are not looked at, they are not tested, they are not part of the rule.

It is just what you need to put into the water.

And so that material is going to continue to circulate in our systems and to accumulate over time.

But right now they're talking about using recycled water for these cooling towers, which that should scare us to death because already now you're starting off with a higher bio burden.

And let's talk about, because I think this is important as well, David, is that people need to understand how close they need to be.

I mean, so let me ask you, how close do I cool into it in this area here?

How close do I need to be to that to actually have that route of transmission to me for a pathogen?

Do I need to be right on it, or can I actually pick that up from the droplets that it comes out and then dissipates in the air?

Could I just randomly pick it up from say, a mile away, half a mile away, a quarter mile away?

Yeah.

What is that distance?

Good question.

I mean, we know that I've seen instances where workers who are doing cleaning and maintenance activities using pressure washers and cooling towers have contracted Legionnaires disease.

And that can be handled as an occupational exposure issue, but it's frankly rare.

Usually in the cooling tower adjacent to the cooling tower, you're actually not exposed to many of the aerosols.

Right.

Because what causes that exposure is a huge fan in these cooling towers that blows the mist high into the air and it serves out, it comes down in kind of an umbrella fashion in the surrounding community.

The winds are a big issue.

So wind direction, time and temperature inversions.

If you're in a city like New York City, where you have a lot of buildings, you have eddies and currents, and when you in the nighttime, you get more of the mist that comes down into the streets.

And there's a lot of cooling towers in some of these cities that people don't even realize they're there.

It's just in roofs and things.

You don't consider they're essentially actually unregulated at this point.

That's crazy.

Other than New York City and some parts of New York with healthcare, there's no regulations requiring, you know, reporting treatment, monitoring, disinfection, until there's an outbreak.

Then they go looking for cooling towers.

But, you know, essentially cooling towers impact the surrounding community.

And it may be, you know, a few dozen meters to upwards of a mile, that frankly, that's scary.

The reality is, ladies and gentlemen, that if the data center has been built in your area and you're a mile away from it, you're in the danger zone.

You may be exposed to whatever it is they're emitting.

And without any requirements, monitoring, testing, reporting requirements, enforcement, whatever they put into that cooling tower is just what it is.

And even homeland security wise, I mean, back when I was with the state of Florida, we talked quite a bit about how you would look for sources of community exposure for terrorist activities, for chemical, biological, radiological substances in a cooling tower.

If someone has access to a cooling tower, and it's not that hard to get to a cooling tower, you have a aerosol dispersion device, one of the best there is, that impacts a community.

The potential for terrorist activity or infiltration, you know, to reach a community.

I mean, look at what the Chinese are doing, buying up all land and all God knows what else.

And then just imagine that.

Not they want to give any ideas.

But just think about it.

There's more implications to this AI than we think.

We've got a national security problem now as well, that we're looking at, not just the contamination.

They're in unsecured areas.

You can wind up any of them.

I remember there was a hotel in Tampa.

Normally cooling towers are positioned on top of buildings most of the time, yeah.

We just had one in Washington D.C. that was in a back parking lot.

You could walk right up to it.

Another one that I dealt with in.

Tampa, that was contaminated, David.

Actually, luckily that one was not contaminated.

Oh, well, that's unusual, you know, but.

Access to it was, was pretty, pretty easy.

And that's one aspect that I tell people, is that if you want something to be cleaned and maintained, make it accessible.

And so cooling towers that are not accessible, that are hidden away, they are.

The ones that are problematic.

They can be some of the most difficult ones to maintain and often become major issues.

So, you know, there's a lot that we need to look at in environmental health.

And unfortunately they do require regulatory oversight.

You know, people, entities, groups, companies, whether it's construction, hospitals, nursing homes, you know, any type of large facility that uses a cooling tower, they need to treat it as the potentially dangerous item that it is.

It's not the only dangerous item.

It's not the only source of legionellity.

But when you have outbreaks caused by cooling towers, they're big.

They impact a lot of People.

Yeah.

And people who have nothing to do with the place, maybe never went to the building where the cooling tower is.

Served, could get contaminated, are most likely.

The ones to be made ill.

So the people that work in the data centers, obviously, because there's going to be an integral team that work in the data centers, are they in a particularly high risk situation for contamination in those data centers?

Maybe they're not at the coolant over side of it, but in the actual data center itself.

Because obviously I get that there has to be some form of risk from Legionella and other pathogens in there.

Good question.

I'd say we don't have much data to support an opinion either way, but if I were to look at the likelihood of exposure and the populations of people who would be doing that work, and frankly, it's not many, once a data center is completed, it's a box with computers in it.

There's not a lot of people who go there.

Normally they're not elderly.

You know, that is an industry in which we have, you know, a high percentage of.

A high percentage of risk, actually, of elderly and people who are immunocompromised.

Yeah, well, they're not the ones.

So, you know, younger people typically are not affected by this, by these pathogens.

And when you're inside the building, the exposure is less than it is when you're in the parking lot or approaching.

So it's the people surrounding the building that are in the danger zone.

And this is where the problem exists.

Yeah.

So, yeah, there's.

There needs to be a.

An adult conversation and stop, you know, stop just throwing, you know, the assumptions of.

We'll figure that part out later because too much, that happens.

Too much.

Yeah, yeah.

Once we get out, once we get halfway across the river, we'll figure out how to get the other half.

And as you said, there's no regulatory requirements to be able to monitor them.

In any way unless you're in New York City.

And the effectiveness of those regulatory requirements I would bring into question.

Right.

I don't think they're stringent enough.

I mean, look, we're literally looking at another outbreak.

It's hit 22 cases now.

It is going to double.

This is just especially you know, when you, when you.

I get to the point now where you send me an outbreak that's have a look at this, and then I look at it and I'm like, those numbers are wrong.

This is, this is just the beginning.

Yeah, yeah.

Unfortunately, the number of outbreaks has not reduced.

The number of cases has not been reduced.

So it raises the question and begs the question of, you know, how effective are these regulations and do they need to be, you know, because you regulated and you didn't.

Didn't make the impact that you wanted, maybe you need to revisit it and come up with something else or better enforcement or more stringent requirements or, you know, study it.

Because many times public health and, you know, policymakers, they do a ready, fire, aim.

We know enough.

Let's just tell them to do X, Y and Z and we'll go from there.

Well, if X, Y and Z was bringing a butter knife to a gunfight or was wrong to begin with or actually makes the problem worse, if you're not willing to ask those questions, you're very likely to run into those kinds.

Find out the errors in your ways eventually.

David, before we finish off again fascinating conversation, there's something that we don't consider in this.

Technology advances.

What would your message be?

What do environmental health professionals now, industrial hygienists, need to look forward to?

What do they need to do for preparation?

Because this is going to be essentially a new development in a field, an emerging field.

Well, I would say environmental health professionals are already engaged in their work in some form or fashion.

I would say that they certainly need to seek opportunities for education and training in adjacent areas.

I will announce here that the American Industrial Hygiene association is working on a very broad and comprehensive training program that will be offered to environmental health professionals, infection control professionals, as well as industrial hygienists in the coming year.

In the meantime, engage with your local policymakers and engage with your local businesses.

You know, we have community outreach in these, you know, dealing with swimming pools and other potential health hazards.

Cooling towers are another one.

And ultimately, when communities are faced with the opportunity and the decisions to permit and allow for a data center to be brought into that community, consider and demand answers as to how it will impact their water, how it will impact their community, and what commitments are they making to mitigate those and not drain the water table and not contaminate the community.

And, you know, how are they going to do that, not promises of.

We'll figure that out in two years.

But how do we do that from.

Being more proactive rather than reactive?

Well, there's responsibility and authority, and who has the responsibility is one thing, but often there are different persons or entities who have the authority to implement.

And when you give away that authority, when you supplant that authority, or you give the authority to somebody who has other priorities, then those with responsibility often suffer the impact.

David, thank you for having this conversation with me.

Ladies and gentlemen.

This is fascinating.

If you're in the field, this is something that is emerging.

It is not as simple as just taking on AI and enjoying the light and the dark aspects.

There is a hidden danger that we are potentially not even looking at seriously.

That needs to be taken seriously and steps need to be put into place to mitigate these risks.

You're going to see a lot more outbreaks that are going to come from these data centers and from the local population.

So we'd love to hear what you think.

If you're an environmental professional, where do you stand on this?

What is your feeling?

Let us know.

Send us a question or connect with us@hd3fl.com and again, we'll be putting up the, the, the, the talk that Dr. Kraus gave at NIHA as well, so you can listen to that.

But this is another form engagement.

Get involved, guys, in the conversation because it's, it's an emerging side of environmental health.

And also there's other things.

Join me.

The next conversation that I'm going to have is going to be with Rob McNeely, who's coming back on.

We're going to be diving into mold.

That's another fascinating thing that you might not.

There's people out there.

The mold is really, really scary.

And there possibly may even be issues in data centers that may even involve mold.

Who knows?

That's another discussion.

David, thank you for joining me today.

Fascinating.

I'm not going to look at data centers in the right way.

And for those people who are living close to data centers or if you're listening to this and you are in the immediate, like as David said, a mile away from a coolant tower from a data center, you could be at risk, you know, so ask your questions.

Let's get involved.

This is going to hit the news at some point.

There will be outbreaks and we need to be ready, guys.

If you've got any questions, reach out to us.

HC3FL.COM David, thank you for being my guest again today.

This has been phenomenal thank you.

And we shall get to you the next time.

We'll be back with another fascinating conversation.

God bless.