A public housing tenant has died due to complications associated with Legionnaires’ disease likely contracted at a Brooklyn New York City Housing Authority development, where the water is now the subject of ongoing testing and vulnerable residents, including people over age 50, have been advised not to take showers.
The resident of the Langston Hughes Houses in Brownsville contracted the disease and died in July, according to the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), which is now monitoring the testing and disinfecting that NYCHA is supervising there.
On Thursday NYCHA tested the water there after DOHMH notified the housing authority that a second resident had tested positive in January for Legionella, the bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease. That resident did not die, and the results of NYCHA’s testing are expected in two weeks, officials said.
At resident meetings last week, health department staff offered advice on how to minimize the chances of getting the disease, with older and medically vulnerable tenants advised to take baths after filling the tub slowly and minimizing time in the bathroom while running the faucet. Residents were also advised to run the tap at a trickle while washing dishes in the sink, and to contact a doctor if they experience symptoms that include fever, chills, muscle aches or a cough.
“It is a pretty big disruption,” said Ciprian Noel, the resident association president for the development, who said city officials warned residents it could take weeks or months for the building to be cleared for showers. “It’s really really tough, but some sacrifices have to be made.”
Conflicting Guidance
Although there have been several cases of public housing residents getting Legionnaires’ disease at NYCHA developments in the last five years, this appears to be the first fatality during that time period.
On Friday Housing Authority officials told THE CITY that DOHMH and a third-party vendor have reviewed and signed off on NYCHA’s plan to monitor the water at the development going forward, and that the Nalco Chemical Co., a contractor hired by NYCHA in June, will oversee adding chlorination to the water to disinfect the system.
NYCHA spokesperson Michael Horgan noted that Nalco has the “necessary licenses” to handle this task. In September 2022, an outside vendor relying on a lab without a New York State testing license said the lab’s employees had detected arsenic in samples of water taken at the Jacob Riis Houses in the Lower East Side. That lab ultimately admitted the testing was erroneous.
Legionella is not an issue in drinking water, but it can be transmitted via water vapor caused by steadily running water that occurs during showers or while filling up a tub or sink.
City officials said three public meetings over the course of last week gave residents a chance to city officials questions directly. Those who didn’t make it to the meetings were warned with health department signs hanging in the building’s lobby, warning certain vulnerable tenants not to shower, and to take other precautions to avoid water vapor.
The notices urged tenants over the age of 50 — particularly if they smoke or vape, have chronic lung conditions or weakened immune systems, or use medications that weaken their immune system — to take those extra precautions.
But those signs seemed to conflict with notices hung up by NYCHA, which told residents the water was being treated with chlorine and to use the water as usual.
“I’m upset. You just don’t know,” said Chanell, a 40-year-old resident who declined to give her last name when THE CITY interviewed her on Friday.
She’d attended one of the meetings where city officials had mentioned one resident died from the disease last summer, touching off a buzz of speculation around who it might have been. NYCHA and DOHMH have declined to provide any information on the tenant, including their age and whether they had prior medical issues.
“They said you could still use the water to cook but, it’s like, ‘you scared,’” she said, adding that city officials told them the disruption could last for two months or more.
Tenishia, a 56-year-old resident who declined to give her last name, also attended the meetings and said she understood the situation, though she noted the conflicting signage.
“That’s what creates a panic, and people don’t know what they should do and shouldn’t do,” she said. “With complete understanding it makes it easier to deal with the problem and to know how to protect yourself the best way that you can.”
In the last six years, Legionella has surfaced in four separate NYCHA developments: Drew Hamilton and St. Nicholas Houses in Harlem and Clason Point Gardens and Fort Independence in the Bronx. None of the nine residents who became sick died, although some were hospitalized.
In a 2018 survey, the city health department reported a dramatic ascendancy in the number of Legionnaires’ cases reported in New York City over the prior two decades, with 47 cases per 1,000 in 2000 rising to 656 cases per 1,000 in 2018. That included a big spike due to a Legionnaires’ outbreak in the South Bronx in 2015.
The disease remains relatively rare, averaging about 200 to 700 cases annually. By comparison there were 52,000 cases of influenza in New York in 2018, the health department reported.