The Real Estate Board of New York to The City Council Committee on Health Regarding Intro 1094 – Reporting on Legionella Testing

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The Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) is the City’s leading real estate trade association representing commercial, residential, and institutional property owners, builders, managers, investors, brokers, salespeople, and other organizations and individuals active in New York City real estate. REBNY appreciates this opportunity to provide testimony regarding Intro 1094 on the reporting on Legionella testing from cooling towers.

REBNY supports measures that improve public health and reduce the risk of Legionnaires' disease outbreaks, including several bills that were considered during September’s oversight hearing on this topic. However, we are concerned that this legislation would substantially expand reporting obligations without demonstrating how additional reporting would improve health outcomes or prevent future outbreaks.

New York City already maintains one of the most comprehensive cooling tower regulatory regimes in the country. Building owners are required to register cooling towers, perform routine testing, maintain water treatment programs, undertake corrective actions when test results exceed established thresholds, maintain detailed records, and comply with extensive reporting and certification requirements. Existing regulations already require building owners and their water treatment professionals to take corrective action and document that response when Legionella concentrations reach 10 CFU/mL.

The legislation would reduce the threshold for mandatory notification to DOHMH from 1,000 CFU/mL to 10 CFU/mL, a one-hundred-fold decrease. While lower-level positive results can occur even in well-maintained cooling towers operating under effective water treatment programs, the legislation does not explain what additional public-health protection would result from requiring immediate notification when owners and contractors are already obligated to investigate and address the condition under existing rules. Nor is the provenance of the proposed standard explained, or how this number is the best threshold over another number.

We are also concerned that lowering the reporting threshold could create a substantial volume of additional submissions without a corresponding plan for how DOHMH would use the information. The Council should consider whether the Department has sufficient staffing, resources, and protocols in place to review, evaluate, and prioritize a potentially significant increase in reports. Without a clear framework for agency review and intervention, the additional volume of information could make it more difficult to identify serious conditions, recurring problems, or truly high-risk facilities that warrant immediate attention.

Finally, REBNY is concerned that the bill would take effect immediately upon enactment. Building owners, contractors, water treatment vendors, and DOHMH would all benefit from a reasonable implementation period to establish procedures, clarify responsibilities, update compliance protocols, and ensure that reporting systems can effectively accommodate any new requirements.

If the Council wishes to pursue a lower reporting threshold, REBNY respectfully requests that it first establish the technical basis for selecting the 10 CFU/mL standard, demonstrate how DOHMH will meaningfully act on the resulting reports, and provide a reasonable transition period for implementation.

In addition, the City should continue to focus its efforts on effective maintenance, compliance, and enforcement against owners who fail to test, fail to report, or fail to take required corrective action. If an owner is not complying with today's testing and reporting requirements, it is unclear how the creation of an additional reporting trigger will improve compliance or reduce outbreak risk.

REBNY supports measures that improve public safety but does not see a clear basis in the current proposal for concluding that the substantial increase in reporting it would generate would reduce Legionnaires' disease outbreaks.

Thank you for considering these points.

CONTACT:

Zach Steinberg

Executive Vice President, External Relations & Advocacy

Real Estate Board of New York

zsteinberg@rebny.com