A hotel workers’ union says a cooling tower at the High Line Hotel in Chelsea has tested positive for high levels of Legionella bacteria. The union filed a complaint with the health department, prompting city leaders to call for an investigation to avoid another outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease, the illness caused by the bacteria.
This latest report comes less than a week after the city declared that an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease on the Upper East Side was over. That outbreak has so far killed seven people and sickened several dozen others before officials were able to identify and clean the source.
Legionnaires' disease is a severe form of pneumonia caused by inhaling water droplets containing the bacteria. It is not spread from person to person.
A spokesperson for the city’s health department confirmed it had received a complaint about the presence of the bacteria and is looking into the cooling system at the four-star boutique hotel, where rooms this weekend are going for about $400 per night.
The New York Hotel & Gaming Trades Council union said testing at the High Line Hotel, owned by hotel giant MCR, found Legionella levels of 170 colony-forming units per milliliter, or cfu/mL, earlier this summer. Under city rules, results above 10 cfu/mL require disinfection and follow-up testing. Results above 1,000 cfu/mL require more extensive remediation, and the tower’s owner must alert the city’s health department within 24 hours.
A spokesperson for the union said that initially, hotel management would not provide documentation of remediation efforts, so the union pulled its members out of the hotel. Hotel leadership later backed down in arbitration, sharing proof of its effort to clean the tower. Workers returned to the job.
However, a second test conducted on July 23 came back positive as well, this time with 700 cfu/mL. Union leaders learned of the results Thursday, and asked management to allow its workers to leave the premises, but hotel management refused, according to the spokesperson.
The union shared an email with Gothamist referencing the July 23 test results. However, it was unclear whether the bacteria were identified as the strain most commonly associated with Legionnaires' disease.
Reached for comment, a spokesperson for the hotel promised a statement that Gothamist had not yet received by press time.
Elevated bacteria counts alone do not necessarily mean people are at risk of getting sick, said Janet Stout, an infectious disease microbiologist and a leading expert on Legionella.
“There’s really not a direct correlation between these numbers and disease risk, because there's lots of other things that go into whether or not disease occurs,” she said.
Stout said it's also not unusual for bacteria counts to rise after an initial cleaning because the process can cause bacteria to lift off the surfaces of the cooling tower, requiring additional rounds of treatment.
City Councilmember Carl Wilson posted an alert about the complaint on social media and said his office was in touch with the city’s health department “ to ensure that they investigate to avoid any potential outbreaks and that they keep staff and hotel guests safe and healthy.”
City records indicate there are two cooling towers at the hotel, a distinctive red-brick building constructed as a dormitory in 1895. The building owner last submitted Legionella test results in late July and the city last inspected the towers on July 1. The health department said Legionella was not detected in the water sample collected that day.
