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Water-Cooling Towers Must be Inspected, Disinfected: NYC Health Officials
Water-cooling towers on thousands of New York City buildings must be checked and disinfected within two weeks, health officials said Thursday.
The order from city health commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett came as two more deaths were confirmed in the Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in the South Bronx that began last month, The New York Times reported.
The death toll from the airborne respiratory illness now stands at 10, and at least 100 people have been infected so far.
The bacteria that causes Legionnaire’s disease has been found in five water-cooling towers in the South Bronx, but it hasn’t been determined if one or more of those towers is directly linked to the outbreak, The Times reported.
The towers are typically located on large modern, or modernized buildings. City officials said they do not have a registry of cooling towers, and it’s not clear how the thousands of towers in the city can be checked within two weeks or how the city can enforce the order.
On Friday, Mayor Bill de Blasio is expected to announce as proposal to tighten regulation of the cooling towers, including standards for testing and maintaining them, The Times reported.
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