On Sunday, an infectious disease specialist at Advocate Sherman Hospital in Elgin confidentaly said that there is almost no risk of infection from legionella bacteria that was discovered in cooling towers, forcing 3 Elgin School District U46 buildings to shut last week.

District officials has said that testing of the systems in the coming time will be planned prior to the starting of the school year to prevent a recurrence of the events due to which 3 buildings remained closed for three days.

On Monday, Eastview Middle School in Bartlett, Larkin High School in Elgin and the Educational Services Center that houses two alternative secondary programs, also in Elgin, will reopen.

Since Wednesday, the facilities were closed due to the discovery of higher than standard levels of the bacteria, causing Legionnaires' disease, in the outdoor, closed-water cooling towers of the 3 buildings.

District U46 CEO Tony Sanders, director of school safety John Heiderscheidt, and an infectious disease specialist and chairman of Infection Control at Advocate Sherman Hospital Dr. Robert Tiballi were present at Larkin High and Eastview Middle schools on Sunday for informational forums and question-and-answer sessions.

District officials said that the district normally checks its 19 cooling towers for operation and efficiency purposes every September, and removes any algae and make sure that the towers are functioning properly. On the basis of a new industry standard, this year, the district tested the water in the towers for legionella bacteria.

As per the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a normal or safe level is 1,000 CFU/mL, or colony-forming units per milliliter. But the tests showed the tower water at Eastview Middle School at 1,480 CFU/mL, 940 CFU/mL at Larkin High and 1,350 CFU/mL at the Educational Services Center.

Legionellosis is a potentially fatal infectious disease caused by gram negative, aerobic bacteria belonging to the genus Legionella. The first reported outbreak was in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1976 during a Legionnaires Convention at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel.

"We needed to take immediate action to protect our students and our teachers," Sanders said.

"Eastview Middle School students were moved to Eastview High School," Heiderscheidt said. "Seven hundred students there were picked up by their parents. The rest were taken home by bus by 12:30. It was a very orderly evacuation."