{"id":376775,"date":"2026-10-19T11:40:51","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T11:40:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/376775\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T11:40:51","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T11:40:51","slug":"proposed-nyc-bill-would-require-buildings-to-report-legionella-bacteria-sooner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/376775\/","title":{"rendered":"Proposed NYC bill would require buildings to report Legionella bacteria sooner"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>New York City lawmakers will discuss a new bill Monday requiring building owners to report Legionella bacteria sooner to try to prevent future <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/newyork\/news\/legionnaires-disease-staten-island-si-positive-nyc\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">outbreaks<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Owners are already required to test their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/newyork\/news\/nyc-cooling-tower-inspections-legislation\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">cooling towers<\/a> for the bacteria.<\/p>\n<p>But under a new bill from Council Member Lynn Schulman, they would have to report the results to the city at lower levels of bacteria than currently required.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The goal is for health officials to act before more people get sick.<\/p>\n<p>The legislation comes as more than 100 New Yorkers were sickened and 13 died after getting Legionnaires&#8217; disease within a few months.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In July, an outbreak on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/newyork\/news\/upper-east-side-legionnaires-disease-death-toll-august-2026\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Upper East Side<\/a> left 94 people sick and 11 dead. Health officials tested more than 180 cooling towers and found live Legionella bacteria in 59 of them.<\/p>\n<p>In late August and September, another cluster emerged in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/newyork\/news\/south-bronx-legionnaires-disease-cluster-source-eliminated\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Bronx<\/a>, which grew to at least 23 cases and two deaths.<\/p>\n<p>Two cases were also confirmed earlier in October at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/newyork\/news\/legionnaires-disease-cases-north-shore-towers-queens\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">North Shore Towers in Queens<\/a>. That investigation focused on the building&#8217;s hot water system, rather than cooling towers.<\/p>\n<p>The City Council&#8217;s health committee will discuss the new bill at 10 a.m.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n          More from CBS News\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City lawmakers will discuss a new bill Monday requiring building owners to report Legionella bacteria sooner&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[94136,9,24,1057,55,54,56],"class_list":["post-376775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-legionnaires039-disease","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-council","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}