Wouldn't surprise me a bit. It's just an aquatic bacteria that thrives in warm water. I would speculate that a system that has a fairly high and constant flow-through wouldn't provide a very good incubating medium. On the other hand, if nice warm water sits and the bug happens to be in there, it may thrive.

To my mind, the public health and safety code rule for "adequate time at adequate temperature" is probably the easiest and most reliable way to manage this bug on a large scale.

My only reason for mentioning it is that a home-made pre-heater should take this into account, both in design and operation.