Manhattan BP Hoylman-Sigal on cooling tower compliance gaps and task force

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm Brad Whilman, Siegel Manhattan Borough President.

I wanted to thank you and members of your committee and the Speaker for holding this important hearing,

which of course is on the Legionnaires disease outbreak and has largely been at least publicly focused on several neighborhoods in Manhattan, but we know that it is a five borough issue.

Madam Chair, I don't have to tell you that we know that Legionnaires disease has been increasing since the early 2000s.

In 2025, as the CDC reported, New York City had the highest case rate in the country with 7.8 cases per 100,000 people.

And this year, for the second year in a row, Manhattan experienced a major cluster with 94 confirmed cases and, tragically, 11 known deaths.

And I know family members are here today, and I want to thank them for their testimony.

And no New Yorker should have to face this, so I'm very sorry for your losses.

When the Upper East Side cluster was detected, DOHMH acted quickly, I think, testing and remediating cooling towers in the neighborhood within days.

Thankfully, the Upper East Side cluster is now contained.

And yet, we're here today with these family members, and it's past time we focus resources on prevention of this disease entirely, in addition to quick containment.

And as you well know, there are still many acts.

active cases in the city.

The general public most often learns of Legionnaires when cooling towers are contaminated, but there are also less public cases when Legionnaires is suspected to be spreading through a building's internal hot water system.

Through these instances, though they cause fewer Legionnaires cases than when cooling towers spread the bacteria through a community,

they are also serious public health concerns and can be very complicated to remediate and most often impact housing developments in underserved areas.

I've heard from many Manhattanites, and you have too today,

who fear for their health and safety and don't know what measures they need to take to reduce their risk of getting sick.

We can and must do better, and I'm glad to see that the Council is considering this package of reforms to strengthen the City's response to this disease.

I strongly support your legislation, Madam Chair, Intro 1016, to create a DOHMH

run Legionnaires hotline.

I support Councilmember Hank's pre-considered legislation to improve regulation of cooling towers for buildings under construction.

I was glad to see Councilmember Ferraris'proposal, Intro 181, to require building owners to proactively offer shower hoses to all residents affected by

building investigations.

Finally, I urge DOHMH to consider ways to increase education and standardize outreach to residents.

and impacted buildings and believe Councilmember Maloney's Intro 1005 will go a long way to aid those efforts.

We know that the city already has laws in the books.

After last year's Central Harlem Legionnaires Cluster, now new cooling tower reporting, testing, and maintenance requirements were passed by you here, which went into effect in May.

These laws increase the frequency of testing and operational cooling towers from every three months to monthly and require a shock disinfection of cooling towers in the summer months.

My office analyzed the 5,945 buildings with cooling tower systems registered citywide.

Manhattan alone accounts for almost 75% of the city's cooling towers, with 4,405 in the borough.

But there are 520 buildings, Madam Chair, in the borough of Manhattan that have not reported a new sample in at least the last two months.

The majority of these buildings, 347, have not reported any samplings at all.

DOHMH, I think, should investigate whether these buildings are in violation and ensure swift and regular compliance across the city.

The city has an obligation to ensure that there are staffing and resources available to implement these ends.

I'm grateful to Mayor Mondani, the Department of Health, and the Department of Buildings for their

announcement yesterday to strengthen enforcement of cooling tower regulations.

And I look forward to seeing those actions implemented.

It's abundantly clear that Legionnaires will continue to impact New Yorkers for years to come, especially as the impacts of climate change continue to increase.

As the weather warms,

We're going to need more cooling towers, as well as the fact that studies suggest warmer weather increases the incidence of the Legionella bacteria.

And we know that New Yorkers want to help, so I'm happy to announce that my office is in the early stages of creating a Manhattan Legionnaires Disease Task Force comprised of community board members in Manhattan to support and

improve communications to New Yorkers impacted by the disease.

I hope this group of stakeholders can serve as a resource in amplifying the public health messaging that is quick, transparent, and collaborative.

I want to thank you, Madam Chair, again for your leadership on this issue and so many issues of public health that affect all of us.

Thank you, Mr.

Board President.

A question.

The ones that you said hadn't been...

Done in terms of the cooling towers.

Have you told DOHMH that?

We have communicated that to them.

Okay.

I would like to know what they respond back to you, and we would like to work with your office.

I would like to work with your office.

In terms of communication, there are some things that we've come up with out

side of this hearing that we thought might be helpful.

So especially given the amount of cooling towers, the other is that

I have talked to some folks in the administration about the fact that we're going to, once we start building new housing, we've got to take a look at what we're doing with the cooling towers.

So I think that's important, especially in Manhattan.

Yeah.

I couldn't agree more.

And, of course, there's new technology to ward off Legionella.

That would be great.

That would be awesome.

But we have to do this collectively with everybody.

So I thank you for your efforts and your commitment, and we look forward to working with you moving forward.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

Okay, now we have next panel.

Next panel is Melissa Barbour.

Samuel Alito.

Lydia Diana.

David Hawkins and April McIver.

Okay, as I've stated earlier, to the extent that you can keep your testimony to two minutes would be appreciated.

We have a lot of people that want to testify.

And you can certainly submit the testimony, and we're looking at everything, because this is obviously very important.

So we'll start over on this side.