Senator Cleare on Harlem as ground zero and comprehensive reform needs

Thank you.

Senator?

Thank you.

Good afternoon, and I want to thank.

Oh, thank you.

Good afternoon, and I want to thank Speaker Menon and Health Chair.

Thank you so much, Chair Shulman, for holding this very important hearing, and all the council members here today united in the goal to keeping New Yorkers safe from Legionnaire's disease.

I am New York State Senator Cordell Clear, Chair of the Aging Committee in the Senate, and proudly representing Central Harlem, East Harlem, El Barrio, West Harlem, and parts of the Upper West Side.

Last summer, my wonderful district, District 30, which I also dear to my heart, was ground zero for the 2025 Legionnaires outbreak that claimed the lives of at least seven New Yorkers and infected hundreds.

More right in the heart of Harlem.

Legionella was unfortunately, has unfortunately remained a continual issue for the community since Harlem's first reported cases back in 2025.

We saw it again in NYCHA's Wagner houses in November, followed shortly thereafter by one in January at 3333 Broadway, which is one of the largest residential developments in Manhattan.

And for those residents specifically, the investigation has brought months of interrupted water access, diminished quality of life, and countless hours spent organizing with management to address the conditions in their homes.

In both these investigations, though, Legionella was detected.

In hot water systems rather than cooling towers at the center of the summer outbreak, leaving residents

without reliable hot water during the coldest months of the year.

Harlem has become a vanguard of sorts for organizing around and demanding responsiveness to how we maintain our buildings and strengthen the systems that keep New Yorkers safe.

We are behind and playing catch up as warmer temperatures and more frequent periods of extreme heat associated with climate change create conditions that make Legionnaires disease more prevalent.

Far too often, black and brown communities find themselves on the front lines of environmental health risks and bear the disproportionate burden of ecological vulnerabilities.

In response to the 2025 outbreak and our ongoing efforts, I was proud to introduce four bills, one that has now become law.

I partnered with Assemblymember Jordan Wright in the State Assembly requiring biannual certification of cooling towers, proactive testing and inspection, remediation within 12 to 24 hours, and increased fines for violations.

But there's still more work to do.

I'm urging my colleagues to advance additional pieces of legislation that will strengthen public education and awareness campaigns and ensure that tenants and residents receive timely notice when a potential health threat is identified.

I believe we should expand our capacity to test and inspect cooling towers while also examining the workforce barriers that make it difficult to recruit and

or maintain adequate staff.

Based on information given to my office in real time, I don't know if the Department of Health, if the agency can confirm.

I understand there's only been one violation written between last year and now.

That begs the question, are there enough qualified inspectors to meet the demands of the law?

Are qualification requirements unnecessarily limiting the pool of workers who could be trained and brought into these roles?

We need to identify and remove unnecessary obstacles so that 100% oversight and compliance with these basic safety precautions is not simply the goal but the standard.

And with all that we have learned from the deaths in Harlem.

It's a greater tragedy that those people died in vain.

I want to give the council credit for always responding on this issue, even though it continues to bedevil us.

You have passed legislation in the last decade that has improved certain aspects of Legionnaires'detection, and I'm encouraged that you have seven legislative introductions before you today that will make an even greater difference.

I fully support that.

Lastly, I hope the council will support my comprehensive reform, which enacts the Legionnaires'

Disease Prevention Act, a source-to-tap solution that will prevent and mitigate Legionella long before it gets into our cooling towers.

I am confident.

that with decisive city and state action, we can create an environment that ends Legionella outbreaks, prevents the public from becoming the litmus test for Legionnaires,

And these outbreaks, as we know them, put ourselves in the strongest possible position to finish this year with no additional outbreaks.

I look forward to your partnership in this fight going forward.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Before you leave, Senator, I didn't realize that you're the chair of the Aging Committee.

So I'm going to, I don't know if you've met with the new DFTA commissioner.

I have.

Okay, good.

So talk to her because she had some.

Absolutely.

About the Upper East Side outbreak and older adults.

And older New Yorkers.

And, you know, getting them, like, information because they, you know, if they don't show up to a senior center, then you've got to go look for them and all this stuff.

So she's somebody I used to work with and I know really well.

But I would ask, and one of the questions that we're going to send back to Department of Health is how they work with all the agencies, including Department for the Homeless and all of that, in terms of

coordination, especially when there's an outbreak, because that time period is very tight.

Yes, it's very critical.

Thank you.

And Assemblyman...

Thank you for all that you do.

And I think that, you know, we should all like really sit and work together.

We're more than happy.

I am more than happy to do that.

We have other folks, too, that are willing to work with us as well to help us with this.

Thank you.

I look forward to it.

Absolutely.

Me as well.

Thank you so much, Chair.