Nearly six months after one of New York City’s largest apartment complexes tested positive for Legionella bacteria, residents of the Harlem building say they are still waiting for clean water as a deadly Legionnaires’ outbreak sweeps through the city, killing six this summer.
Building management informed residents at 3333 Broadway in May that the water supply shared by Towers A and B contained low levels of Legionella bacteria despite months of treatment.
Until the bacteria is fully eliminated from the hot water system, the New York City Department of Health’s recommendations to avoid overhead shower heads are still in effect, management wrote in a July 20 email to residents, obtained by Spectator. That means residents in the two impacted towers likely cannot shower with hot water until the fall. Legionnaires’ disease is a form of pneumonia contracted by breathing in water vapor containing Legionella bacteria, not from person to person or by drinking contaminated water…